New quest style!

[DM_Kev]

Beginning now. We need a fair collection of players, so we will wait. Gater in esgaroth dragons gold guild.

[DM_Kev]

Hope all involved enjoyed it. This style of quest was something suggested to me by beeline. It seems to be very successful :)

[Gloin]

Aye, the quest itself was highly enjoyable - great DM work there, it's a completely different kind of motivation to keep going when you know a DM's there all the way.

One minor point - I thought the party was far too large at times. I think I counted 13 characters at peak times. This is somewhat detrimental to the ability to see what exactly's going on, especially with the 1.65-introduced PC/Monster spacing problems. I had to click around a large huddle of body parts many times, hoping to find something hostile.

More regrettably, such large parties aren't really conductive to RP. The tendency is to just keep going and going, just because there isn't enough time to interact with everyone around. Prime example - Veld was having to knock down one of his friends because he was possessed by the darkness, and at the same time a badger (isn't that blatent plagiarism from Vyl, by the way?) and a few characters were having a fun time running around and chasing each other. Kind of spoils the mood.

The setting of the quest was very promising, and there were the beginnings of an internal struggle for leadership and/or the ring... but as more and more people joined and were partly teleported to the party/freed by the party etc, the main objective of the quest got lost. I heard "What ring is that?" several times, for example.

Overall - please continue doing quests in this way, they're great fun. But also perhaps consider limiting party size... I know that it's hard to decide who should come and who shouldn't - perhaps take everyone who's there at the briefing, but then don't add additional characters randomly during the quest... I don't know.

Thanks for a great night, Kev.

[DM_Olórin]

I think the size of the party was a case of getting the new conent some good exposure. True some of the characters that came along werent really up to the task level wise but everyone played a part in my opinion. If you dont take the beasties out of the jar and give em some little pink friends (of differing levels of ability) to play with you never realise their true potential :)

It was great to see the new Pallid Dwarves in an encounter situation and to reveal a couple of enemies we havent had before or not in UTT2 anyway.

I agree that very big parties such as this one aint conducive to RP. Several times there were characters withs omething to say or things they wanted to emote that either got ignored or were forgotten in the rush into the next room. Personally I hate it when that happens. Sometimes an absolute blitz of violence on a lair can be great when a moderate sized party wants to play that way to make it a chaotic fight from start to finish with barely a break, it can be exciting, but not when you are forced to.

Overall though, GREAT FUN... :P

[Gloin]

Yes, I agree with every single point you made. :)

I really like the new beasties. Beholders (can't remember ME name) were great fun to hit around... and the mindflayers (Ulundu?) highly scary... I think they're probably a bit too strong - they take out the first charge at them regardless of mind immunity, from what I could tell...

It's perfectly fine to have a bigger party for experiments like this or for giving a new area some exposure, but I would really love to see this type of quests with smaller parties - 5-6 people max, perhaps.

[Luthianna]

Hehe, a slightly distracted party gave me some amusement whispering about to people at least.. :)

Lots of fun, even if I wouldn't say my char would ever be up to those kinds of challenges on her own!

[Lum Levits]

Yes big parties are funny like that.

Just the other day we had that dragon quest. When we got to the boss dragon and a few of the 12 or 13 players I was with immedatly ran up to it and started hacking away. It was obvious to me the DM running the event wanted to RP some talking into the encounter.


I always found a few epic level traps slow a party down to normal dungeon crawl speed pretty quickly.

And maybe a "no save" fear or paralize DM tool would slow people down from rushing in a trying to attack a boss encounter that has something to say first.

Another thing I have noticed in big parties, there always seems to be a few high level players who kinda take the RPing stage and keep it all for themselves. I would like to see some of these people turn the stage over to the lower level, younger players to see what they might suggest. My character is one of the higher level players on the server and I tend to remain silent when in a big party. Reason? Because too many people talking at once ruins it. If I see a name I havent encountered before I almost always try to get them envolved.

[morez]

I loved that quest too

unfortunately it wasnt possible for me to end this task cause i had to log out.

about the too big party:
maybe it would be possible to split the groups like one group could be imprisoned in the dungeon and the other have too free them
(ok still think about what the imprisoned ones should do all the time)

of course RP isnt that easy with such a big mob running around...

i loved that moment when tyrion gots mad but had my difficulties to follow the plot...

but it was a great advertising for future quest in that style..

please more of that..

thanks a lot

P.S.: great work: the whole silverdelve areas

[DM_Olórin]

It is hard to keep track of what everyone wants or needs RP wise in a big party. Most who want to RP something just do so, the flipside is when they dont everyone stands about waiting for someone to take charge.

Regarding the rushing of boss monsters. In the case of dragons, chracters often glug some potions to aid in the fight against these tough beasties. Two of the useful ones wear off very quick, clarity and speed. Once you get the hint tht its DM controlled and it has something to say, like the Cold Drake near Erebor the other night, i find most players step back and listen.
____________________________________________________

morez: Tyrions bout of insanity was a result of something you possibly have yet to meet in the Deep Darks....

... shadow and void, shadow and hunger.... eater of shadows.... in the lightless abyss....

*cough* - huh... what happened there?

[Argon Balros]

i find a good way tp slow things down when you want to discuss tactics is have a quick slkott where you tell the group to hold or say i have an idea or some such thing

[GammaGm]

Can't the DM's hit the space bar and pause the game?

[Prophet7]

The quest was great...expecially having the dwarf that sent us down there turn ino a huge drake and attack us. Too bad I didn't remember Remove Fear until it was too late. Seeing the Beholders named Taurahendi (the mighty eye in Quenya Gloin) like my suggestion was really great for me, and has fortified my need to check the forums before and after I play NWN. I hope you all enjoyed Tyrion's insanity and thanks for playing along Veld. But I really agree about the party size...I could barely tell what was going on in most battles. I think the if several people log on of the same faction and the group is already very large, only characters of a comparable level should be teleported down there. A few of the characters were getting maximum xp for every single kill, and were therefore a little over-eager to get xp and didn't want to slow down and RP.

[Gloin]

Yes, Tyrion's insanity was great fun, but, as I said, since not everyone was paying attention it was hard to get into it..

I don't quite agree with what you said about teleporting players - I think it should generally not be done. Finding a low-level druid wandering alone in the dark dwarf settlement who clearly would never have managed to get there was a bit... hard... to react to, but also, even if there are strong enough characters, teleporting them creates more problems than it solves ("What ring is that?").

So -- everyone loved the new quest style, essentially everyone thought the party was too large. Well, that's not hard to fix... There'll be a race whenever one of these is announced, I believe.

[san~raal]

well, everyone has pretty much sumed it up.....it was great fun

but then again...anytime a DM is around, things tend to pick up a bit

[morez]

but teleporting players who are in the know of some plot like they should be prisoners e.g. could be real real good for future events.
would like to rescue an old mate rather than cutting off a head once again :)

[Argon Balros]

i would like to venture into silverdelve on sunday evening with a party.

but i do not have a key and a dm would me nice :)

[Silverleaf]

A DM event would be fun. Valen is getting quite boring, and a good RP event would spice up his character a bit I think. :D