The World of Avlis

Notice that this post is NOT in the rants and raves forum. It's simply an observation that I'd like comments and/or confirmation on.

By and in large, the roleplay on Avlis is great. People stay in character most of the time and try to lend color to the world. Some of you are just superb roleplayers and others, like myself, at mediocre. Ya know what? That's okay too.

Setting aside the fact that Avlis has great roleplay, I have noticed that the amount of roleplay is reduced since I joined. I can remember entering the Blowing Gale and there being folks around most of the time having conversation. The City Gate must have been packed if the Blowing Gale had 'regulars'.

Now, I'm not saying that this is bad one way or the other because good roleplay still happens. My question is one of cause and affect. Do you feel that Crafting has had a significant impact on the amount of roleplay?

I have an alt in Mikona. Early on in my development of this character, I decided he was going to craft. I was and am so pleased .... so surprised at how much fun it is! It's just great and a huge addition to the world. But, it is time consuming and usually solitary (unless your last name happens to be Bouldershoulder).

When playing Manuel, I see tons of people at Fanos shop crafting potions. Every crafting table is full! Are these the same kind of folks that I'd be talking to at the Blowing Gale before crafting was implemented?

Yes, maybe I'm answering my own question here. The point is, there's lots more things to do in Avlis since I joined and lots more places to visit. *cough* Ferrel *cough* That fact might be reducing the amount of roleplay. However, the time being spent elsewhere is also lots of fun and that means something too.

I must admit to doing a reasonable amount of crafting but I find that this increases the roleplay for me in a number of ways.

I find my self talking to other people about crafting, people ask me questions about crafting and I get to give them IC hints of recipes etc.

I also travel to far flung places (well far flung for me) in search of ingredients and often get invloved in mini adventures with other like minded people while looking for things.

This may not be everyone's cup of tea when it comes to RP but I enjoy it and I hope people that I interact with enjoy it too.

Scind has basically become a crafting character, as this fit his ides as a bowman quite well. I have found myself alone more, yet I still have adventures. The thing I have noticed is that while the adventures have dropped in number, they are often more involved adventures and have helped me to develop Scind more than the many, yet bland, adventures of before.

In short I meet fewer people, do less adventures, and am alone more. Yet when I do meet people and RP a bit it is a lot more involved, and a lot more fun.

I think it is that there is soo much content and area to cover that folks are having a harder time finding other characters to chat with and RP.

This is at least the issue for me. I saw a total of 3 encounters of people the other day on a trip starting in mikona market place.

market -> none
temple district -> none
City gate and inn -> none
outside Mikona -> three halfings that had to go after a minute. resonable, I had a bit of fun chatting, but every talk with another PC does not blosum into a group.
North from there through the wilderness to Blandenberg -> none
Lost cavern -> none
Stop by the ferry again -> none
Along trails randomly till I saw some lizards and dragon elfs. -> none
Dwarftrade -> Yay! bouldershoulders! Chatted for a long time there, but they all seemed to be logging off one at a time until I was alone.
Along the trails randomly to eylsia -> none
Farming outside Eylsia -> a 'couple' who did not seem to have much time to talk. But did stop to chat with me anyway. And farming is always a great break from the norm.
FoM -> none.
I sat outside there for hours and stayed in the first entrace place hopeing to meet some folks. I did meet a herb collector that was just exploring. Nice chatting but they obviously did not have any intention of adventureing with me.

So, I guess I did get a lot of RP in, but I just felt as if I spent too much time alone doing Hack'n'Slash.

So here is my question. Where are these hang outs where I can go to meet up with some groups. I thought either the city gate inn, Lost cavern, or FoM would be sure bets to find a group to adventure with. None of them worked. Little luck at dwarf trade, but no group. Maybe we could do a poll or two to figure out where the hot spots are for finding people to adventure with.

Now there is a quality poll. Where do people congregate in the North. I personally see people everywhere, but I find people most often at the following locations (in order of population):

1. Zvidureth. If nobody is there when I arrive, they most certainly will arrive within a couple of minutes.
2. Outiside Elf Gate ? This is the cross-roads of Elysia. You catch anyone coming into the zone from the Wilderness, and most of the Elysia foot traffic.
3. Dwarf Trade ? Home of the AAAA and Bouldershoulders. I?ve notice a larger number of people coming this way.
4. Outside Deglos ? Old timers still remember this when it was the only place to find others, now I see only the occasional seller of spears and swords.

Sorry to briefly hjack this thread in order to answer some questions.

Bear

You forgot Fanos' Shop. There are ALWAYS people in it.

Well, i haven't been on a great deal lately. But Kharak usually hangs outside the Mikona gate sitting on the big rock watching people go by. hrrm...maybe keeping an eye on people go by is a better phrase to use

I almost always get an encounter with someone that way.

I too have an alt who is a crafter, in fact, his whole purpose is crafting as I would like to be a wandering arms merchant, I however have to get to a point in my crafting skill where i can offer products that Pc's might want, not to mention hopefully giving the world economy a kick start.

all that said, this tends to make this alt a loner, he has made a few connections for suppliers and eventually will have to go "on the road" which will open up RP possibilities, but until then, I'm afraid he is a non-entity.

I havent noticed a drop in RP, but it does take place in different locales, you mentioned one of them, the area just outside the Mikona gates tends to be a area where Pc's congregate (just last night there was almost a dozen players there), I have seen more people in the Mikona baths than I remember from my first days here.

I dont think crafting has reduced RP per se, it may have changed the type of RP one sees however.

This is quite difficult to answer properly.

Before crafting, I used to spend much of my time farming. I hardly ever do that now.

However, I do spend a lot of time crafting. It is very satisfying to craft something. A great sense of achievement. It does take a lot of practice. It also requires a lot of time spent collecting ingredients. In fact, in a way, it can be slightly disappointing now that the 'load ingredients and do 50 times' thing has been added. You spend ages getting the ingredients, go to the satisfying part and - all done. Off again collecting. Sometimes, I choose not to use these enhancements for this reason.

The main advantage of crafting is that it is something to do when alone.

It can be very solitary and lonely, especially in Deglos. Unfortunately, sometimes, there are no others online. Even if there are, it is hard to find them. I don't like using TELLs as it spoils the IC atmosphere. So I do some crafting and hope to meet some other people. Places like Fanos' or Dalliera's are a good location to meet people - other crafters. Thus, not only do we meet but we have something in common - a love of crafting. This is a good start for RP.

I rarely miss a chance for some RP in favour of crafting. RP is why we are here. However, it is a good starting point for RP and something to do until then

Well, i haven't been on a great deal lately. But Kharak usually hangs outside the Mikona gate sitting on the big rock watching people go by. hrrm...maybe keeping an eye on people go by is a better phrase to use

I almost always get an encounter with someone that way.

The Road to Mikona just north of the City Gate/Garrison does seem to be the current hotspot of Mikona.

As I was reading Manuel's post, I came to his conclusion before I read it. Crafting has changed the world. Cor rarely adventures with anyone anymore, because usually people are busy crafting or collecting ingredients of some such. I miss the times where you could walk into the city gate inn and find a crowd to talk to, or walk into the market and see it busy with activity. Crafting has opened up RP opportunities referring to the crafts, but not in party exploration. Jord and I designed the AKN to rely heavily on RP, based on apprentices and so on, sharing of recipes, etc. We also designed the guild hall to be a conductive place for RP to happen. (we're just waiting for it to be put in, for those wondering). At the same time, the dynamic has changed. Your character is no longer sitting around RPing, he's busy crafting away. But we wanted crafting, we wanted more things to do, and we got them, but at the same time it's changed the way the world works. Some for the better, some for worse.

KinX wrote:Well, i haven't been on a great deal lately. But Kharak usually hangs outside the Mikona gate sitting on the big rock watching people go by. hrrm...maybe keeping an eye on people go by is a better phrase to use

I almost always get an encounter with someone that way.

yep ... me too. This or just inside the gates are the places to be, as it's the only way in and out of the city (well that I know about IC anyway). Often there can be a large group there just talking, with little else happening. Quite often I stand there IC guarding but OOC hoping someone might turn up to talk to !

Zvidureth is one of the prime meeting spots in T'Nanshi. Cha'reth often goes there to do a little shopping for various provisions, and runs into other people, leading to an evening of roleplaying.

The Entrance to Deglos seems to have died down a bit as a meeting spot in T'Nanshi.

In Elysia, Fanos' shop and Elf Gate are surely the places to find folks.

I agree that things have changed a bit... probably influenced in part by crafting, and in part by the new content. When new things open up, a lot of people will go visit them (e.g. Sanctuary, Temple of Verossa, and Ferrell in the past week or so). I wouldn't say people roleplay less, but it does seem that the common meeting places are a bit less populated than they used to be.

- Aloro

Ok. My thoughts on RP at the moment.

One, the summer saw an ebb and flow of players, lots of new players have come and gone, some have stayed. We are back in school days again and that affects how often people get on. Summer vacations from jobs affected how often people got on. IN general, compared to say May, I"d say the last month I saw fewer people on. Of course, stats may always prove me wrong, but my perception at times was that it was hard to find people.

Causes?---I think there are more than I hinted at above, but they are all intreconnected to some degree.

server population---as I stated first off, population ebbs and flow. One minute there are 4 people in Mikona, 4 hours later there are 25.

Large world----there is Mikona, the Wilderness, deglos, LeOr, Eylia and now Ferrel. Its probably a good thing the server population isn't evenly distrubuted among those servers as you'd probably never be able to find anyone. As it is, in low population times, it will be pretty tough to find people.

The balance between server population and Large world----As long as both grow about the same rate, everything should be great. Personally, I think the world is a bit too large for the number of people that we have. I'm glad a lot of quests and areas just went in to what we have, but I'd personally like to see what we have fleshed out really well and booming with people. Of course, I don't have access to all the stats and I'm sure the team uses the number of chars in the vault, logins and anything else they track in determining the efficacy of opening other servers.

RP feel----Each of the servers has a different feel to it, and in general, there are different reasons why you would start and continue to play a character on that server. Since we've brought up crafting, lets talk about Elysia. Its not that crafting is bad or detracts from RP, it is that Elysia is Alchemy headquarters and it generates a particular kind of RP. Basically, each server has its "in-crowd" and if you want to play consistently on that server, your character finds there way into one of those "in-crowds" or you don't end up playing very long. Break-in characters are pretty tough to do and will give you headaches. Trust me, Pollio was basically a break-in character in Mikona and it took a couple of months of consistently RPing with him before it really became fun. So when it comes to Elyisa, you have the AKN and fanos' that is really important there, the maiden keep, order of O'Ma, plus a smattering of others that are either fewer in number or hang in both Elysia and Wilderness. So the RP is largely dictated by the groups there. If you are a newbie and you don't craft, but you see 8 players in Fanos' shop all doing alchemy consistently and RPing about alchemy, eventually they will ask if you want to learn alchemy and what do you say really? A lot of people will say yes and join for the RP value that they got out of sitting in the shop with the other alchemists. Wilderness and Mikona are of course other bastions, each determined by the groups that hang there most frequently.

There are a few other factors that fit into this as well, but I've said enough I think.

I think many players have their own IC house. Or the guild has a building. So people don? need too go and seek other people, they running towards the guils and hope too se members there. And indeed, the craftingsystem takes away, lots of players from the 'doing nothing now' moment.

I can only speak for myself. I have been busy IC with crafting.. but.. only rarely. I do it when I find some peace and quiet. But then I keep to it for the day. More ofthe then not, that's been it for the month. Or at least a week or two.
Today.. my day in Mikona: Log in with char 1 as I wanted to shop.. inventory overload, better get rid of a spider pack, I still have one or two... 60 minutes later, alst queen spider fell to my 1 pt damage attacks with strenght 3.
Walk away from mines, find myself in the middle of the attack upon mikona... 90 minutes later, attack done, shopping not, and the folks I wanted origially to meet with char #2 and go explore the new temple of verossa vanished into the bath's.

Well, anyway, log in with Char #2, go to bath after talking with people on the road. Chat with the people in the abths, untill a look at the clock tells us that it migh be time to get going or we'll never make it.

Go out of Romini door, meet someone one tried to get ahold of for a day or two due to URGENt political/investigative business...
DO talk a good RP session .... allmost done... well, done.. when sudden, attack by balor and undead on market... well, balor names no one, but talikng about the attack. Party member has to chew on the fact he died. Comfort him, talk, go to romini bath to have him among people... well, 7 1/2 hours online, way too late, but mostly RP.. no crafting, some DM 'love' well 'attention' is the better word.

All those who complain about lack of RP forget one thing:
You are responsible to get others to RP with you. They are not there to entertain you, you must entertain them with your RP. All other exspectations wil be disapointed over time.
No one RP's with you? Go to a hotspot, and don't run away from it if no one's there. Stay put, start thinking about soemthing to do, talk... anything.. play with your familiar, practise spellcasting, or such.. peopel will come by.

Best spot is still the road outside Mikona. I never ever had to wait longer then 5 minutes untill someone came past there.

More often then not you can then rescue them from the undead and bandits, and talk with them. Everybody new to the server will be gratefull for a local guide with knowledge..... to spare.

Come one, folks... RP is not something others have to do for you, it's what you should do for them.

There is alot of stuff to do and people are spread out like WrathOg777 said. Many characters dont have the self discipline to excel at a trade but fiddle around with whatever their friends are doing to keep them company. Zvidureth is always a nice place to get someone to buy or give you food because you're prepared for anything except dinner.

WrathOG777 wrote:Maybe we could do a poll or two to figure out where the hot spots are for finding people to adventure with.

Here's my list of Places To Go when you're looking for others:

Fanos'
Outside Mikona Gate, near where the bandits spawn
Dailera's (or whatever her name is.. the bow woman in the Forge district of Elysia)
Zvidureth
Order of the Way

WrathOG777 wrote:I think it is that there is soo much content and area to cover that folks are having a harder time finding other characters to chat with and RP.

This is at least the issue for me. I saw a total of 3 encounters of people the other day on a trip starting in mikona market place.

market -> none
temple district -> none
City gate and inn -> none
outside Mikona -> three halfings that had to go after a minute. resonable, I had a bit of fun chatting, but every talk with another PC does not blosum into a group.
North from there through the wilderness to Blandenberg -> none
Lost cavern -> none
Stop by the ferry again -> none
Along trails randomly till I saw some lizards and dragon elfs. -> none
Dwarftrade -> Yay! bouldershoulders! Chatted for a long time there, but they all seemed to be logging off one at a time until I was alone.
Along the trails randomly to eylsia -> none
Farming outside Eylsia -> a 'couple' who did not seem to have much time to talk. But did stop to chat with me anyway. And farming is always a great break from the norm.
FoM -> none.
I sat outside there for hours and stayed in the first entrace place hopeing to meet some folks. I did meet a herb collector that was just exploring. Nice chatting but they obviously did not have any intention of adventureing with me.

So, I guess I did get a lot of RP in, but I just felt as if I spent too much time alone doing Hack'n'Slash.

So here is my question. Where are these hang outs where I can go to meet up with some groups. I thought either the city gate inn, Lost cavern, or FoM would be sure bets to find a group to adventure with. None of them worked. Little luck at dwarf trade, but no group. Maybe we could do a poll or two to figure out where the hot spots are for finding people to adventure with.

By far The Best place to meet people in Mikona is on the road just outside the cemetry. The number of people you meet there... and it's not because they're just taking out frustration on the local bandits / undead - although that does play its part...

What usually happens is someone is having a little fight with some skellies there. Some folk rush to their aid. The skellies get killed. The people go back to the road and chat about how the skellies and bandits are much more common these days, often a little chat about the weather too (well they do if I'm there). A few more folk pass by and join the group. Then some more skellies or bandits appear and it all starts again.

It's not that people are hanging out there to beat up on bandits and undead. Far from it! The bandits and undead are in general a distraction. People congregate there to chat, and of course it's much easier to chat with a stranger if you've got something to talk about like the number of bandits today It can be great fun. And of course, these things often flourish into a trip to the Ice Caves, or a romp up Tumult Hill. Or even a shopping trip to Mikona.

Places like Inns are generally too noisy. Markets - well people usually go there to buy things, and so they like to get their business over first.

Oh, another good place. The Order of the Way. Which is a little out of the way (ha - pun not intended), but because it is one of the few places that sells Cure Critical Potions at a reasonable price it is often frequented.

Funny, the post by Manuel , as just a few days ago i thought the opposite: "My god, why does every session have to be a heavy-duty social interaction RP-slugfest. I want my hack&slash back".

Really, i feel that the last 6 weeks have been non-stop RP all the way. I remember when i used to level, but it's been a while.

If you wish to find people to RP with, just dive into the Orders and before you know it you drown in it.

If you wish to find people to adventure with, Elf gate is a great point to stake out. Like said above, it's the crossroads of the Elysia server.

Cheers!

Mickey, going online with earplugs on to stop hearing anyone until he found something to smash...

The results from this month's RPotM contest gladdened me. At least two of the three first-place winners were people who go out of their way to meet and RP with a large variety of people. More RPers like them means fewer times when no one seems to be around or available. That factor swayed my vote, and I'm glad I voted. It made the difference for one of the winners, and he deserved it.

@ Wrath: lol, I've walked that same route many times doing the same. I've tweaked it a bit, but maybe I ought to be posting in the Army forum and looking out for Baal and others too.

When I started playing avlis (3or 4 months ago now I think) crafting was alot of RP. Now I dont know if by coincidence or not, but the 4A hall in T'Nanshi is emptier now since the crafting xp change. As soon as I logged on and was close to the guild, that would be the first place I would head to. 7 out of 10 times someone was there to RP with.

In my game time window on weeknights I hardly see anyone. Only on weekends do I see a more steady flow of people. Crafting wasn't always a lonely experience.

I think crafting makes Avlis more flavourful, and have had some great times RP'ing it. And hope there is many more to come.

par700 wrote:When I started playing avlis (3or 4 months ago now I think) crafting was alot of RP. Now I dont know if by coincidence or not, but the 4A hall in T'Nanshi is emptier now since the crafting xp change. As soon as I logged on and was close to the guild, that would be the first place I would head to. 7 out of 10 times someone was there to RP with.

In my game time window on weeknights I hardly see anyone. Only on weekends do I see a more steady flow of people. Crafting wasn't always a lonely experience.

I think crafting makes Avlis more flavourful, and have had some great times RP'ing it. And hope there is many more to come.

yeah, crafting was broken a long time ago. PLyaers gave the team feedback on it and the exp got fixed. Unfortunately, it did have the effect of lessening the general number of people who were crafting and consequently the number of people who you could RP with. Alchemy was hit less hard I think because the central place was Fanos' shop. 4A crafters are spread out a bit more.

As for server population, there are peak times and then low times. I'm in GMT -5. Evening peaks are generally great, but as soon as midnight or so comes, the server pop falls till about 5 AM when Australia hits its primetime. Some nights, it wasn't uncommon to see 4 people in Mikona.

Overall, I think weekends are a much bigger playing time than weekdays. People get busy during the week with both work and evening activites. Friday/Saturday/Sunday has less constraints. If I see 15-20 on an evening in Mikona during the week, I might see 20-30 on a weekend.

One suggestion I have is if you see only 4 people on, send one of them a TELL with something to the effect of Lonely night, want to meet to RP? Chances are good they'll be feeling the same thing.

Question:

Say there are only 4 or 5 people on the server. And say the DM online at the time used that good ole 'Jump all players to DM' button. And say there was some IC reason/explanation/justification.

Would you as a player (I'm not talking about your character here for now) be pissed? Would you be happy?

Deider wrote:Question:

Say there are only 4 or 5 people on the server. And say the DM online at the time used that good ole 'Jump all players to DM' button. And say there was some IC reason/explanation/justification.

Would you as a player (I'm not talking about your character here for now) be pissed? Would you be happy?

Fine by me. Of course, I prefer it when the Master of The Way uses his Ki to transport me over the Ethereal plane. Or that time the gnome inventor assembled his flying contraption so that I could be air-lifted from M'Check to the gates of Deglos.