Markshire – Turbocharged!

[Monty]

After several discussions with Thrym, I wanted to throw this out there….

First, RL issues have kinda kept both T and I from really hitting Markshire2 lately, as well as the “difficulty factor” of NWN2 construction. It’s a fact of life that things are tough right now, and it’s very hard to spend the hours at a time that NWN2’s toolset requires to create stuff.
So, my question. We have a lot of good stuff designed for NWN2 that could be adapted to Markshire. T thinks it is doable, and since he’s the NWN master, of course I defer to his superior knowledge. The question really becomes, is this something the player base wants? I’m willing to put in the hours required to make it happen, but if no one is interested, then we might as well push on to MS2.
So, let me and T know if this is a good idea, a bad idea, or whatever.

M3C

[Corgano]

I say we continue to work on MS2. I know I’ve done several areas for MS2, so that may be a factor for me, unlike most of the other people here. I have enjoyed my time in MS1 and I am really looking forward to playing in MS2 once it’s done!

I think that when Opi’s current evil campaign is done, things will slow down (almost to a crawl) on the MS1 server. It’s a shame but I think it’s seen its day. I know that Ceorlas, myself, and occasionally Aels play on the MS1 server. I haven’t seen anyone else in game in a long time though. Well, that’s my $.02 for what it’s worth.

Peace,
Corgano

[Shanara]

I loved playing in Markshire and would love to continue playing, but I do not like NWN2 at all. I just bought a new computer and the only thing would cause me to install NWN2 on it would be if Markshire were continued using NWN2. Even then I’m not sure I’d install it. I have NWN installed.

I know a lot of hard work went into MS2. If it’s continued, I’d probably be back. If MS is updated, I’ll definitely be back.

[Aelswith]

I agree with Shanara. I bought MS2 thinking it might somehow be more fun than MS1, but did not enjoy it at all. I never finished it. The map always gets in the way, going from one area to another takes forever and the characters you create, all look like they’re on steroids or something. I also could never get comfortable or feel at ease with the controls that move the character around. It’s much easier and more fun to do that in MS1.

If, as Monty says, you have new things you’ve created for MS2 which are adaptable for MS1, I’m hoping you’ll decide to put them in. If you did, everyone would come back. I’m sure of it.

Things you could do to make MS1 more enjoyable:
1. Raise the max. Level up to 30. (For all of the characters who are already maxed out.)

2.Put in some new areas we can explore.

3.Make the Spider temple a little easier . . . so we won’t be afarid go there.

4.Maybe open another shop in Stonemark that sells dresses and gowns? (Optional, of course!)

But no matter what you do or change . . . the game will be nothing without the DMs. They must come back too. They are what really make it such a fun place to be.

Kelly Ann

[Opinvu]

I voted for continuing, I hate seeing hard work gone to waste, unless it is my own.

On the other hand, I can see use and renewed fun in MS1 with updates. When you have a good template/foundation you can always swap new things in and out of it to keep the newness rolling along. DM’ing in it only goes so far as we have seen.

A little change in here and there, a new system and maybe a couple new locations and and changes to the landscape and you virtually got a new game.

Fallout 3 is a good example of this as well as a demonstration of how not to do it. Sure the foundation was good, and the add-ons were fun, but did they really remake the game? No. They just added a vcouple more hours of fun. If I were to suggest an update, it would be some updates through out, not just the end game extended. Some more races of monster, a new threat or two that trickle in down the road, and new things throughout a characters career.

All of which is allot of work. So, I have had a few brainstorms pop into mind that would accomidate that quite well without tearing into a good foundation and trying to remanufacture it with asphalt rather than concrete. (who knows if they would work as they do in my head though)

Ultimately I think it is more of a question of what does the heart of the creater really want? If you build it they will come. No matter where it is.

[Monty]

Well, I think our player base is alive and well! In one day, we got LOTS of responses, and keep them coming! Thanks for saying how you feel about this VERY important topic. We are looking at the different options very seriously, and your input will be part of the decision-making process.
As I’ve said before, there are pretty much two reasons MS2 bogged down. First, NWN2 is many times more complex than NWN, and takes much more development. For example, it can take 20-30 minutes to simply 1) load the toolset 2) Make 1 minor change 3) Start NWN2 and 4) Test the change. This makes it hard to spend 30-45 minutes at the end of an evening (after work) and make small changes that add up to big stuff. Second, with the economy and all of that, RL has gotten much tougher (at least for me), and again, MS2 has to take the back seat to the real deal.
But don’t despair! We have not given up, and we will go forward, the best we can. Anyone that wants to help out is always welcome. Please keep letting us know how you feel, and what you want!

M3C (Lurking, but still listening!)

[BoostNJuice]

I love MS as much as the next player, but that being said i think you(the builders of MS2) have come too far to stop and revert to MS1. the beauty of MS1 is that it is for the most part complete. By this I mean it has functioned as a stand alone PW that is almost as entertaining without a DM as with. That being said I think most would agree that we can all jump back in to it and feel like we are playing a finished product. why fix what is not broken? Ms2 on the other hand is not complete and has left some of us jonesing for a more complete experience. I realize that it is most likely more difficult to finish MS2 vs. updating MS1, but I think you will be selling yourselves short if you abandon the project now.

And as a side note the biggest flaw to NWN2 is the plot lines. I believe that is why most people don’t care for this game. I’m willing to bet that if MS2 were more complete that fewer people would be bothered by the mechanics of the game.

there you have it, so GL on your decision, we will be behind you either way.

Boost

[Thrym]

There are far greater flaws in NWN2 then just plot lines but I agree about them.

Alright, let me explain some stuff.

• MS1 is finished. We won’t be doing anything to it.
• MS1 and MS2 are eras, not necessarily different games. There’s a five year difference in game era info. MS2 is post War of the Pass.
• MS2 has software written for it that is, for the most part, compatible with NWN1.
• Working with and playing with NWN2 are very, very, very, very time and bandwidth consuming ventures.

  e.g. To change a script (even just adding a semi-colon) and test it requires nearly half-an-hour.

  Load the toolset, open the module, open the script, change and save the script, save the module, close the toolset (it eats a lot of memory though sometimes I get lucky and don’t have to do that step), copy the module to the test stand-alone server (this is necessary to load the database), load the stand-alone server, load the module, launch the game, login to Gamespy, login to the test server, test the script and then close the game, then open the toolset, and start over again.

• Time. This is a fairly rare commodity at this point in a lot of people’s lives. I know my time has been very limited of late and that effects the choices we make when deciding what we are going to work on. I did most of the work on MS1 during a bout of unemployment and then when I started working for FingerLakes1.com it was part-time. I actually worked on Markshire for more hours each week then I worked my day job back then. Today, the day job eats more hours and the night job eats hours.

I also want to point out that the “project” of Markshire is more then just NWN. There might be a time in the future when we take up a new engine altogether. So keep an eye out.

[Thrym]

@Aelswith wrote:

3.Make the Spider temple a little easier . . . so we won’t be afarid go there.

Umm… that’s the point of it. Boo!

@Aelswith wrote:

4.Maybe open another shop in Stonemark that sells dresses and gowns? (Optional, of course!)

I seem to recall that the Anastasia’s sells dresses as well as magical items.

Read my post above in reference to changes to MS1.

[BeyondThePale]

To be frank, I don’t think a lack of players would be a problem if the world was functional.

It’s the level of commitment by the admins and builders to seeing things through that is the key. Until that gets fixed, the project isn’t going anywhere. Not sure if anyone has noticed, but I’ve stated such to the point that I ran out of breath and stopped saying it.

The world won’t attract players until we can honestly offer them a place to play that doesn’t need a DM on all the time. MS 1 does not NEED a DM to play. MS 2 currently does.

[Shanara]

I’ve been itching to get back into a PW again and would love to see MS2 up again, preferably using NWN1 but whichever is decided.

That said, I can help some. If you go with NWN1 I know enough about the toolset to be able to build areas (if you want any knew ones). Can’t do much of anything else though. And I love to write. Need anything written up, I’ll be glad to take a stab at it.

[Cayle]

Before you guys decide what to do, you have to decide what the goal is. You also have to decide if the projected future work in man hours (multiplied by 2.5 because we always greatly underestimate the actual effort and multiplied by 2x again because these are not day jobs and RL steps in more than occasionally) required to get the server to a running state compares with the kind of player population you hope to attract.

A couple of things of note in addition to what has already been said. NWN1 and NWN2 currently both average approximately 200 total players at any given time in the roleplay tab. On NWN1, about 2/3 of these players are either on Aerlith or Amia; the two 500lb gorillas of the NWN world. From observing their respective communities, I’d reckon that these worlds keep a lot of players on NWN1 that would otherwise uninstall it. This means that there are probably 60-80 concurrent players that are actually available. The NWN2 situation is less dire in some respects and more dire in others. It is less dire because it does not have any behemoths like Aerlith or Amia; meaning more players are potentially up for grabs. It is more dire because it never reached the kind of critical mass that NWN1 did and is also past its player population peak. An NWN1 or NWN2 world is a mod, so you always have to take into account the current total player populations of those games, as well as the shelf life of AAA games in general.

If you want to have a world for weekly runs, MS1 as it is fine. If you want to have a world that had a large enough player base to maintain longevity, then there are certainly not enough available players on NWN1 as if you have anything less than 40 concurrent players and you won’t be able to sustain it over the years.

The Non-NWN options for a MS3 are better than prior years; still not what I’d call superb, but slowy getting there.

Realm Crafteris probably the best bet in 2009 for “rapid to launch”. People complain that it does not “scale well”, but it has been used in many projects, it has a large dev community and “not scaling well” means that it does not elegantly support 100+ concurrent players.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rb_BRBPvgz8

You can still download and use the Torque MMO Kit, though it is getting long in the tooth. It is in fact the MMO Minions Of Mirth, made open source without the art content. The current TMMOKit works with the original Torque, though some of the TMMOKit users have been working on porting it to work with Torque3D, which is in Beta. That work is coming along well and T3D looks to be a godsend in terms of productivity; especially with its road and river editors. When I’ve got Angela to beta, I’ll use it to build Epoch on T3D, using the TMMOKit/Minions of Mirth server landscape backend.

Shameless Plug – Speaking of Angela (the interpreter for Memotica), at current progress rates, I should be ready for beta by Christmas. This means that Memotica will be usable. Memotica is the PW design language that I’ve been working on. It lets you do things like think of how you might like to have a hidden-name/alias and disguise system and then rather than leaving it as pontification on the forums, actually cook it up in an evening’s work. As I said, I’ll be using it to build Epoch, but I’d be delighted to collaborate on subsystems with another team.

Second Life – seriously, this might be an option. There have been roleplaying realms built on it – more than one it seems; though to be honest my SL knowledge is slim to nil. Lavendula worked as a dev on one for a while, so you could ask her about it.

[G_kinkaid]

~revisits thread to actually enter discussion~

~Cayle’s long ass post crits for OVER 9000~

~brain bleed nap, will try again after respawn. before departing manages~

@Thrym wrote:

I also want to point out that the “project” of Markshire is more then just NWN. There might be a time in the future when we take up a new engine altogether. So keep an eye out.

LARP

tbh

imo

[domf]

More content!

MS2 on NWN1…

I could care less about bells and whistles – NWN2 runs laggy for me anyway.

[Lt. Tyler]

I’ll play where ever MS2 is. I’m with Dram, the bells and whistles aren’t so important to me.

I got NWN2 but maybe played it for an hour or so.

So I vote for whichever approach is more: likely to happen, and requires less effort. What if getting MS2/NWN2 to the point of not requiring a DM takes more effort than making MS2 /NWN1?

[Cayle]

Guys, there may be another platform to keep in mind. Opensimulator. It is essentially open source Second Life. There are a couple of active groups building RP “Worlds” (in that community, they use the terms “Sim” and “Grid”)

http://www.pseudospace.net/

http://thegorlife.com/

[muddy]

Whatever you do I just hope that gold coins and gems have actual weight.

[Valgrimm]

I’m for MS2 for NWN2. What I did see that was done I liked. For a while I was playing on another NWN2 server. It ran smoothly, load times weren’t that bad, and the areas were rather large. So it is possible. DMed events with large groups tended to lag some. I also don’t have the worlds greatest comp, I just turn all the setting to the lowest possible.

I just finished Fallout 3 and the expansions, so now I have to wait for Dragon Age.

[BeyondThePale]

@muddy wrote:

Whatever you do I just hope that gold coins and gems have actual weight.

Love you too Muddy.

[Cayle]

@muddy wrote:

Whatever you do I just hope that gold coins and gems have actual weight.

You are kidding, right muddy?

[BoostNJuice]

@Cayle wrote:

@muddy wrote:

Whatever you do I just hope that gold coins and gems have actual weight.

You are kidding, right muddy?

I think that was for you Cayle……..

[Cayle]

It’s nice to know that my (d)astardly designer instincts are appreciated 😛

[muddy]

@BeyondThePale wrote:

@muddy wrote:

Whatever you do I just hope that gold coins and gems have actual weight.

Love you too Muddy.

I won’t let it die. Evar.

When can I come over and talk to the telemarketers again?

[Author]

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