What I think of the mod so far.

[SHO-VA]

I was asked this in another topic.

Before I answer, I should probably state my experiance with NWN, and building In NWN.

I have been on 4 seperate PW build teams, and have built 7 different mods for my sons SP enjoyment. Of those, each time I have learned something, that helped make the next project easier. Of The PWs I helped work on, the Harry Potter server under RP was the longest I was apart of, for almost 2 and a half years.
This is the only one of the PWs, that is still up and running now, so it is the only on that my work can be seen on. It is also the only PW, that I am still Proud of, even though I am no Longer apart of it. Durring my time with Harry Potter, I spent more time in the toolset, than in game. I learned how to script fairly well, and made some rather unique script systems, including crafting for potions and scrolls, a pc team game, and a completely new way for summons and henchmen to work.

I am not trying to "toot my own horn" here, just wanted to point out that what my comments I have on the mod so far, dont come from someone with no experiance building what so ever.

I have seen only 2 areas of the mod so far. the log in room, and level 1 of the undermountain. I porobably would have seen more, if not for the NWN crash problem I was having last week.

The great things I saw:
the 2 areas are extreemly well decorated. the amount of placeables in them, give the feeling that the areas are "alive", and realistic. The Inn, feels like a city inn should, with lots of patrons.

The good things I saw:
The npcs in the Inn, all have something different to say. (the npcs would have made the great list, but they dont move around) In lev 1, there are lots of different critters to fight, I like the variety. there are also, is some good level type treasure to be won.

before I move on to the not so good things, Please understand that alot of it is based apon my prefered style of play (low magic items/ and a much slower xp/gold reward system)

the Not so Good things:
Too much xp, and gold when I first came in.
I do not consider myself to be a hard core RP'r, but I like to try to rp. I usualy figure out who my chars are in levels 1-3, and what they are going to be later on. Because I went right to lev 5, the focus for me went from who the char is, to what build it is. The huge amount of gold, changed the focus from, i hope I find some good gear, to Wow, I can buy the best gear available, and still send some home to mom! [img]smile.gif[/img]

Too much High powered items in the stores, and just laying around in lev 1.
I dont have a problem with the actual item levels, just that they were far to easy to get. the free start up gold, allowed for the best gear that i could use. I just feel that my char didnt earn them is all.

Getting into the under mountain was extreemly easy.
Not that this is a bad thing, but actually getting in didnt feel very special at all, rather a bit more "ok your here, go on in..."

The next part comes from my experiance building, And I am offering to help with these, if help is wanted.

The not so Great things:
Server Lag, seemed a bit high. (i think the ping was at 350+ when i first logged in)
there are alot of things that can be done to help minimize server lag, from breaking up the stores in to more of them that sell less, to making smaller areas (if over 12X12) to making sure placeables and triggers arent on the tile grid lines or crossing them, as well as making sure the scripts that run dont cause lag.

There is no area party restrictions on xp reward.
I joined a party, and was in the inn. I went from lev 5, to lev 11 in under a minute, due to a party member being deep in the undermountain. I dont have a problem getting party XP, only that I should be in the same area as the party to get it.

The on Enter give gold, and Xp to first time player, seemed to fire on me again, when a new player entered.
all this did was raise me another 2 levels, and give my char enough gold to not need to adventure anymore, he's rich, out the butt now... ((again this is more of a rp style issue for me))

Several instances of creature spawns only happening once in level 1.
it looks like the default undead from a placeable (bones, zombie corpse) were put in. these things should be changed to a trigger spawn, so everyone can enjoy them, not only the first one into the level.

Several instances of creatures getting stuck behind placables/tileset features.
face it, the default creature AI, isnt that intelligent, probably need to look at the on blocked script here to see what can be done, or maybe moving the spawn point over abit, so the stupid things dont get stuck.

No "failsafe" on the enter the well trigger.
after getting all the levels from being in party, I went into the well and was put back in level 1. the spawns there were extreemly easy for a 13th lev. I explored about half the level, fought everything and killed them, and didnt get damaged at all. (my char build is a 10 rogue/3 monk/1 shadowdancer atm. he has dex, wis, and int as his primary stats (about 16 each, with average str, and con, and low chr. with items, and buff potions, the str, dex, wis and con, are around 22. he uses his fists for melee, and a long bow with fire arrows for ranged) while I dont know what the system for getting to the other levels of the Undermountain are, the spawns seem to be level specific to the area. what I meen is I got the same spawns, at lev 5, that I got at Lev 13.

overall, on a scale of 1-10, i give the mod a rating of 7.5. The detail (look) is what out weighs the not so good/great things, as my style of play counts for very little as apposed to how much work went into making the mod.
The potential for the mod is huge! You, and the build team have done some excellent work, and y'all have a reason to be proud. Again, if help tweeking some of the not so good/great things is wanted, I am happy to help.

thanks for hosting, and wanting my input.

SHO-VA

[Ziroc]

Great points. I am indeed retooling all of the gold and item drops as well as tweaking the XP a tiny bit. You will no longer be able to buy sold items from Durnan. (but you can deep in undermountain). I have a lot of changes in store. EfU has been a work in progress for 4 years now [img]smile.gif[/img] And I'm always fixing and changing things.

The lag is most likely because of me running 3DS Max with the server in the background. I run the server on my Alienware 3.8Ghz overclocked system, and loading things and saving large files will cause lag (this will stop when I release the mod)

Other causes of lag are simply your connection, or a 'hop' somewhere between you and me. Your connection is only as fast as the slowest server.

BTW, there is no build team. I did all of what you see currently. (I do have some friends working on item sets and such which are awesome!) but everything you see is all by me. No teams here. But I do have awesome players that report bugs and have really helped me get everything running well. Without them, EfU would be buggy. [img]smile.gif[/img]

[ 05-16-2006, 02:15 AM: Message edited by: Ziroc ]

[Mozenwrathe]

You won't be able to purchase sold items from Durnan's shop any more? Why not? It made for some interesting purchases, if nothing else. Since I entered this game, that was the main way I was able to get the devices needed to survive and thrive. If we are no longer able to do that, where will be able to access some of the higher level items? As well, for people that like to help out other characters by holding onto more powerful devices, will this mean we will need to change the way we do this? (As in physically hold onto such items until someone requests them, rather than sell them to Durnan so he can redistribute them to others.) Will this change only affect Durnan's store, or will this go for all the stores within Waterdeep? Because if it is only Durnan's store, then I can make changes in whom I sell to appropriately. (exampli gratis: Gerfuril for weapons, hopefully the Hearthstone store will finally open its doors for armor and shields, et cetera)

As well, will you be announcing all the major changes in a new thread when the expansions come out? It would be greatly appreciated to any and all.

[ 05-16-2006, 07:23 AM: Message edited by: Mozenwrathe ]

[Ziroc]

Well, say a new user comes in, and there is a +12 sword in his store? Just over twinked. Don't worry, Skullport will have reselling stores. I won't do it right away. I will test balance things to make sure all is ok, and doesn't make it too hard to exist in upper levels of EfU.

[Mozenwrathe]

As long as there is somewhere to do it. Perhaps if they were spread out throughout Waterdeep as well as the Skullport stores it would work. Just have the ability to dump stuff you don't want to be resold at Durnan's (such as a lot of the Level Twelve armor and weapons). I am sure there's a way to just get the cash value of the item and then have it simply vanish from game entirely. I know the reverse has happened when I tried to purchase an item and I lost the money but as I had no room in my inventory the item itself disappeared as well.

Besides, right now there are no +12 swords available, unless you've been holding out on a secret location for ultra premium longswords... *grins*

From SHO-VA, we received the following (not exactly in the same order though): Too much xp, and gold when I first came in. I do not consider myself to be a hard core RP'r, but I like to try to rp. I usualy figure out who my chars are in levels 1-3, and what they are going to be later on. Because I went right to lev 5, the focus for me went from who the char is, to what build it is. The huge amount of gold, changed the focus from, i hope I find some good gear, to Wow, I can buy the best gear available, and still send some home to mom! [img]smile.gif[/img] Too much High powered items in the stores, and just laying around in lev 1. I dont have a problem with the actual item levels, just that they were far to easy to get. the free start up gold, allowed for the best gear that i could use. I just feel that my char didnt earn them is all. There is no area party restrictions on xp reward. I joined a party, and was in the inn. I went from lev 5, to lev 11 in under a minute, due to a party member being deep in the undermountain. I dont have a problem getting party XP, only that I should be in the same area as the party to get it. The on Enter give gold, and Xp to first time player, seemed to fire on me again, when a new player entered. all this did was raise me another 2 levels, and give my char enough gold to not need to adventure anymore, he's rich, out the butt now... ((again this is more of a rp style issue for me))

As far as I have seen thus far, SHO-VA, the only way to share XP across areas is if you are doing a quest. Aside from those, I think the XP is area based. I have been in parties and received full XP for killing creatures on the same game level as one of my party members, but they were in another section of the level. I'll take a look at this again myself, as if you managed to get XP from non-quest sources across levels then something I have not seen previously must be happening.

The OnEnter gold script I think fires whenever your character has less than 150k gold. I know I have managed to trigger it around ten times in a row by simply spending it all on a certain item (or series of items), logging out with that character, then logging back in another day to use said character for something else. It's a minor thing, but you do have a point in terms of it being something to look at for later versions of the module. (And hey, 150k gold would be easy to live off of for a very long while in an standard roleplaying situation! I have a few characters who could use that for bail money though, but that's another story...)

The OnEnter XP script only fires once as far as I know, mainly as it is impossible (currently) to lose XP within the module. Given the maximum standard XP for any creature is set at 600, losing XP would be a painful thing when dealing with death issues. (You are expected to die a lot down there.) I've never received that starting XP again for any of my characters.

I think the weapons are there mainly to make it easier for people starting off at seven character levels to survive the first few areas of the Undermountain without becoming corpses too often. I actually tried to run a character through starting at level 1 back when the boost was optional, and it took forever (or so it felt) to get all the way up to seven character levels. Of course, this was also before certain sections in the Tradeways opened up. A lot of the creatures down inside of Level One of the Undermountain are nigh impossible to beat with a first level character, even with the weapons you can afford with the 150000 gold you are given. (exampli gratias: umber hulks, which may end up getting souped up in the new hakpack anyway.) One could easily go into Waterdeep itself to find good items if Durnan did not sell them, but at the price of being slain by that Sea Hag who sits less than a block away and can take you out from her vantage point. Oh, and the assassins who just take your character to zero HP without even trying.

Since you are an experienced builder, I would love to ask your help on the weapon designs I came up with in another thread. I know as a fact they are terrifyingly powerful - perhaps even overpowered for this module. As I am only an idea guy and have barely touched the toolset, I still don't know how to properly balance some of these things. If you could look them over and make any suggestions, it would be greatly appreciated. I am certain that most of the weapons would have to be acquired either through stores or be taken off of opponents using them on you. I tried to take that into account when doing up some of the designs.

It was great seeing you in the Undermountain, and I hope to game along side you soon.

[ 05-16-2006, 11:46 PM: Message edited by: Mozenwrathe ]

[robertthebard]

I think the quest xp is what he is referring to. You can get the xp no matter where in the module you are, if you are in party. Adding checks for where chars in party are uses up resources, and causes a lot of lag. We used to ask if somebody wanted to get "spammed" with a lot of xp or not, before we turned in quest items with large amounts of xp.

[SHO-VA]

I have now completed the basement, levels 1, 2 and half of 3 in the under mountain, and about 20% of waterdeep city. Ziroc, you are a great builder!

Perhaps the script for the free money should be changed to only fire once per char.

I also think the entire economy should be looked at, as my main char now has about 9 and a half million. Perhaps the stores should be tweeked to sell for more, and buy for alot less, helping to ballance it all out. Once my char gets to 15 mil, Im going to try and buy the inn...

the party xp issue, could be handled with a few simple server rules, rather than a complex lag causing script system. A rule of you must be within 10 levels of each other to party up, is very easy to place, and givin the great players here, would be followed pretty much all the time. penilties could range from loss of levels from all members of the party for not following it, to a warning boot to the ones that ignore it. (which i doubt would ever have to be used.)


I am glad to help out in any way, but I think I should get further into the mod before I start making huge recomendations. I dont like to assume On things I havent seen, because, my assumptions 99% of the time are wrong. (thats why I dont go to Vegas.)

In terms of weapons/items, and what i have seen, both here and other places, it looks like the item levels are at the ubber stage. There isnt anything wrong with that, just it can cause huge problems if it isnt done correctly. As an example, A PW i was helping out at for awhile, had loads of ubber items in it. to compinsate for the availability of these, all the bosses, where nerfed up, so they wouldnt be killed instantly. the end result was even with the ubber items, and power builds of chars, lots of chars couldnt even hit a boss, let alone kill it. Even with chars AB of 90+. I am certain that Ziroc is a much better builder than that PW has, so I'm not worried that thats the case here.

My char has on average +5 - +6 items. these grant immunities to things like knockdown, poision, and even death magic. he regenerates about 9 hp per round. He wears gloves of the ballanced hands, that is +5, with some big damage bonuses of a few different types.
with his decent str, and wis, he can so far hit everything he has encountered. with the damage bonuses, he can kill them pretty quick. with the wis, and dex bonuses along with his equipment, he has an ac of 40+ so he rarly gets hit. He has not died once yet, though that could just be due to my play style. He has had one impressive fight, that could have gone either way.

The fight was with the winged drow dude on level 2. it lasted for about 6-9 minutes, and was by far the most memorable one so far. my char used his first heal potion in this fight. this fight was completely solo. My char is 15th level total.

On items, overall Im old school, that being extreemly low end on their powers. One of the biggest annoyances with forgoten realms, is the ubber items so readily available. I think it goes back to my PnP days, when finding a +1 anything took forever, and was a huge deal. trying to sell it was another, as most stores couldnt afford to buy it. That doesnt meen I'm against having high powerd items in, just that I think NWN made it a bit cheesy on the ammount of magic a item can hold. I also dont like that a item powers removes the need for a class from the game. For instance a item that grants hide in plain sight, removes the need to take the shadowdancer class to get that special class ability. same holds true for items that grant other immunitys too. like immune to crit, removes a great palemaster boon, from being special. I have seen 1 Item so far that can be devistating to overall ballance of the server, this item grants immunity to two different spell schools. this is an extreemly high end item, and, not only is it dangerous, it is available in a store on the 3rd level! A item like this makes me ask the question of what else is out there? when I get to 40th lev, and see the rest of the mod, will I be Immune to everything?

Please Understand this is not a slam against Ziroc, or to belittle the great work he has done. All of this is just opinion, based on what I like as a builder and player. I am by far not a great Power builder, when it comes to characters. In fact, I would guess I'm not even average, as I like to play chars with quirks, even extreem vulnerabilities. I've even been known to Rp certain, shall we say, oddities, like a char who is terrified of fire arrows, and will run away from them. For me, this is part of the fun, esp in a party that is counting on my help [img]smile.gif[/img]

A huge Thank you to Ziroc, for making and hosting this mod. Z, you have my vote for best area builder in NWN. the amount of detail you add to each area, makes other PWs i have been to, look empty.

[Mozenwrathe]

Durnan will never sell you the inn. If for no other reason, the Council in Waterdeep would outbid you and just give it back to him. *grins merrily* Aside from that, I am sure that Ziroc is figuring out ways to slow down the flow of cash. Please note, however, I have actually spent over 100k gold on just scrolls to face down one enemy before, and will probably do so again. (Those were my rogue characters going after dragons.) So there are some places where having a lot (or a terrifying amount) of money is suitable. It's not that hard to clear out 10Mil gold in one go inside some of the shops later on in the module. And as there may be uses of portals coming up in the new module, there may be cash fees set for those as well. I wouldn't mind it as then it would give characters reasons to actually pick up all that loot they find on the ground and sell it off. (Keeps the server relatively clean if nothing else.)


I happen to like being able to party up with players from various levels of experience, actually. Makes it easier and safer to experience some of the deeper levels of the Undermountain. There is an automatic XP penalty the moment you do, however, which takes care of the immediate ardour. (Finding out that you'll only get 5 XP working with someone vs. 100 XP by yourself is a great reminder of how much of a difference in levels they are from you.)

Don't worry about how powerful your weapons are. The creatures here will always be able to kill you. Signed guarantee from Ziroc himself. *Winks and laughs* Slightly more seriously, we have at least one "professional" powergamer in our ranks (whose advice on many things I treasure), and I have seen HIS characters with all the extra goodness get wacked, waxed, and washed away by some of the creatures inside of the Undermountain. And I am not talking about dragons, either. The AI for most of the monsters is pretty good, as they'll take up positions around outnumbered characters if possible, or used ranged attacked after camouflaging themselves. Very annoying when you try to hit them and they technically are still not there.

You are a far wiser gamer than myself if you haven't died yet. All my characters get killed within the first few minutes of play, even with the excessively powerful items I try to foist upon them. I am a "snatch and grab" type, so I like to get as much cash as possible early on. That would probably explain my penchant for the Trollbark Forest. (Wait until you are at least a twentieth level character to check that place out. These are NOT your normal trolls.)

Even with all of the terrifyingly powerful items, there is no substitution for the "real thing." What I mean is that all the character classes regardless of what special abilities they may have duplicated in items have a place here. From bards (who as far as I know cannot ever be replaced by items) to red dragon disciples, all the various creations will have advantages here which no singular combination of items will ever hope to duplicate. Sure, the only thing missing is an alignment changer, and then utterly ridiculous builds could finally happen to prove once and for all that weapons alone do not make the character. (exampli gratias: paladin/barbarian/assassin, monk/palemaster/bard, et cetera.) Somehow, I don't think an alignment changer is coming though. *grins* That would just be wrong.

I am jealous that you were able to take on the drow (perhaps he was a shur) on the second level without dying. *grumbles*

And if you have ever played World Of Darkness themed games, I have a few character designs I could tell you about which were COMPLETELY screwed up and the GM let it slide for good roleplay. Inside of AD&D, I had a few messed up ones as well. They wouldn't fly here for the most part, but on an RP server one never knows.

And as immune as you can be to things, there will always be something inside of the Undermountain that will be able to kill you. It's one of the reasons why I am looking for people to go over the creations I have posted: so they can be powerful, but not so powerful that you are absolutely immune to everything.

[SHO-VA]

I am the first to admit that I will probably die in the mod, just with my main char, it hasnt happend yet [img]smile.gif[/img] course with a high amount of skill points in hide, and move silently, and the hide in plain sight feat, he can always just disappear if it gets too dangerous.

I have made another char, a pali, and well he didnt do to well in the 1st lev of undermountain..

In terms of item levels, and in Particulary ones that grant Blanket immunities, from experiance on on other servers, things can get out of ballance really fast. I certainly am not saying this is the case here, just that I have yet to find an answer for it in my own, and other builds.
Another part of it isnt mod related at all, but rather a old issue I have with how Bio-ware handled the use magic device skill for rogues and bards. with enough skill points any item can be used, reguardless of race, class, gender, alignment or whatever. with the availability of high powered items, and a high UMD skill, rogues and bards can cast 9th level spells, and get all their class benifits too. it just doesnt seem to ballance out overall. the only way I have seen to sort of fix this, is by making a change to the on equip item script a mod uses, and then its so intensive, as you have to make a line of code for each item.


the excess money, isnt a huge deal to me, just that, i havent been to another server that had this much gold available overall. In my style of play, I tend to pick up everything, for 2 reasons. 1, I hate being poor, and 2, on most other servers, items laying on the ground tends to cause alot of lag.

course I will enjoy eating my own words of concern, if later i find a shop that sells items for huge 10 mil+ prices..

[Mozenwrathe]

Well, I have seen only a few things at the 10Mil gold mark, but I have seen more than a few things around the 2 to 7 million gold counts. There are rings that cost an average of 1Mil gold for each, and this is all before the proposed expansion. Even arrows are not cheap. For example, there are arrows which sell for at least 100k gold for a stack of 100, and I have yet to see a stack of teleportation bolts anywhere that was more than 5 pieces. So in the future we may be looking at higher prices to reflect the high cost of living (and dying) inside of the Undermountain.

I have noticed that about the high UMD skill as well. The best boots in the Undermountain which are "readily" available are the ones for the monks, and I have two rogues wearing them, both having maxxed out UMD ratings. Then again, there is no racial barrier for the monk boots that I have seen thus far.

[ 05-17-2006, 05:34 PM: Message edited by: Mozenwrathe ]