Avlis Team Attitudes: Fact and Myth

[Orleron]

This is more an information post than a rules post.

The Avlis Team operates on certain concepts. Often, conflict arises between these concepts and what the players THINK these concepts are or should be. The team used to keep these concepts fairly reserved, until now. I'm putting them more out in the open so the players have an easier time understanding why we do what we do. So here goes, a primer on Avlis Team Culture:


FACT: The Avlis Team's main purpose is to fullfil "The Vision". This is an affectionate term of unknown origin which refers to my personal view of what Avlis' NWN incarnation should be. So to restate, the Team's main purpose is to make Avlis what I believe it should be like.

FACT: The Avlis Team's next major purpose is to allow each team member to have fun doing what he or she is doing. When a team member is no longer having fun, they are not happy. Team members are therefore not pressed to do anything they don't like doing, because they get that all day in their RL jobs.

FACT: Because of the fact above, and because Avlis has a playerbase of over 2000 active players, we have the term "Baby Steps" on the team. This is an old phrase used by Silk and I in the very early days to signify that we cannot possibly do all the work that needs to be done, so we won't try. We'll simply do what we can, and what we have fun doing. Things that don't get done will either get done eventually, or not get done because they are not fun to do.

MYTH: The Avlis Team does not care about its players. The more accurate thing to say is that our main focus is not our players, but it is a focus. This is why we have things like restore requests, persistent corpses, and other mechanisms to try to ensure the safety of your bic files, gold, and items. This is also why we have DM's who run events, and idea boxes and constant freedom of communication allowed on the boards, barring personal attacks.

MYTH: The Avlis Team does not care about my character(s). Saying we don't "care" is not true. Saying we are "UNABLE" to care is more accurate. With 2000 players, we have a choice. We can spend our time running DM events for as many people as possible (which is still not as many as we'd like to), as well as building new areas and fixing bugs. OR We can focus on making sure that all 2000 players keep their items, gold, levels, and other things that they cherish. We cannot do both, and since the former is more inline with The Vision, and is more fun for us, that is what we do.

FACT: The Avlis Team does not care about class balance. Very true. Once you start down the dark path of nerfing, forever will it dominate your destiny. There are exceptions to this that I will talk about below.

MYTH: The Avlis Team hates me and my character class. Very ridiculous statement. Different character classes were made for different purposes. The class you play on Avlis should be determined by your backstory, not your build. If you focus on your build, you open yourself up to be disappointed when we change things, and it's not our fault.

MYTH: The Avlis Team hates me and my character class Part Deux. Sometimes, in rare cases, a change in balance is made because we disagree with what Bioware did with the game. This usually occurs with things that were put in with the expansion packs, SoU or HoTU. The reason may be a personal dislike on my part, i.e. The Vision. OR The reason could be that the change is needed because there was something SO abusive as to be intolerable. ABUSIVE is the key word here. It's a very different word from "unbalanced", or "unfun".

MYTH: The Avlis Team changes things to be more in line with 3rd Edition D&D. In some cases this is true, but not in all. We try to ERR on the side of 3rd Edition D&D, but our goal is not to recreate the entire 3rd Ed rules sytem in NWN. Our goal is to recreate rules that best serve The Vision. In many many cases, this is equal to 3rd Edition rules, and sometimes 2nd Edition or 3.5 Ed. It varies on a case by case basis.

MYTH: The Avlis Team is supposed to do whatever they can to make the game fun for me and my character. Wrong. Your fun is your own responsibility. You play at your own risk here. There are too many characters for us to focus on each on individually (see above). The players are what make Avlis fun. Everyone says that. IF you are not having fun, it is no one's fault but your own, and that's OK. No hard feelings. You are free to move on or find some friends here that you connect with.

FACT: Sometimes the Avlis Team changes things that affect balance just because they think it's cool. Yep. We do. And you usually agree with us.

MYTH: Players are not a part of The Vision. Completely untrue. Though I have said that there would be an Avlis server regardless if there were any players or not, it is also a much better place with players around. But as stated above many times, there are too many players to give everyone individualized treatment fairly. Thus, we err on the side of being fair to all by focussing more on the tasks at hand. The idea with this strategy is that the players will police themselves. And they do. They form guilds that enforce the laws, even make new laws. They form support networks and have trading fairs that allow people to distribute gear and things. They even oust members of the community from the boards when they are too out of line. Though they cannot ban them, they tell them to go and often the person will leave or be banned shortly thereafter because of some action they take in a fit of rage. This system works very well. The players do a great job at policing themselves so we don't have to. Unfortunately, the DM's act as the policemen cases that are beyond the players' control. They hate this part of their job, but it is necessary. The more the players take care of this though, the more time the DM's will be able to spend telling stories.

FACT: The Avlis Team hates whiners. This could not be more true. Whining is defined as complaining about any problem which is not truly a big problem, but you try to make it seem like a big problem. A "big problem" is something that affects more than just yourself, your guild, or your adventuring party in a way that is real and untolerable. There are very few cases where something is truly that bad. In the event that something IS this bad, we still hate to see whining about it. Real constructive problem reporting is backed up by facts and numbers. Specifically, how many people does this affect? What are their names? Do all of them agree with you? Quickest way to get on our shitlist is to say things like "lots of people say", or "many people have complained to me about" without giving any other names or information or numbers.

MYTH: Once I am on the watchlist, I am essentially banned. Not true at all. The watchlist is only a record we keep. Some of them end in bannings when people have done something against the rules. However, the majority of them do not. They end in vault jailings, or nothing at all. The only thing a watchlist entry will definitely do is ruin your chances for getting onto the Avlis Team, but even this has exceptions occasionally.


More to come as I think about them......

[Jonezie]

If you haven't read this, you probably should.

Please don't reply to this post, though - it is here for your information, not your comments.

[GHENGIZ.KHAN]

Bump!