What's a PW?
To go along with Steam's current sale Neverwinter Nights 2 and its 2 expansion packs for $10, I thought I'd make this post to highlight the unique multiplayer aspect of the game that are PW's.
PW stands for Persistent World, and Neverwinter Nights and its sequel's persistent worlds are unique beasts unto themselves. Some people reading this thread will have played at least one pw in their time and seen for themselves the myriad of drama, poor building, server population issues, and other random terribleness that can result from these odd corners of the internet. However, many still find themselves drawn back to persistent worlds for the rare occasions when these problems fade away and the unique elements of the medium are allowed to shine.
For those who have never played a PW, they are custom built modules used NWN1 and NWN2's toolsets, that people host on servers for other players to come and play on. Basically think of it as a custom built World of Warcraft RP server with (volunteer) staffers presiding over the world bringing the npc's to life. The different PW's out there range from light RP (i.e. roleplay if you want, or just go and grind) to heavy RP (i.e. stay in character at all times).
This thread is dedicated to Legacy: Dark Age of Britain, a neverwinter nights 2 persistent world which uses both expansion packs (again, currently $10 on steam:
http://store.steampowered.com/app/2760/), and falls under the 'heavy rp' category.
As the administrator and one of the original creators of this world, I'm humbly making this post to highlight the world and invite people who may have never played a pw to take a look at Legacy and other nwn2 pw's, and for those of you who have to come give Legacy a chance.
Basic Info:
Legacy's website:
http://legacydarkage.com/
IRC Channel: irc.darkmyst.org #legacy
Legacy's Requirements: A unique CD key and copies of Neverwinter Nights 2 and its two expansions - Storm of Zehir and Mask of the Betrayer that is fully patched to the most recent version.
How to Login: Press multiplayer at the main menu, click gamespy, select the 'roleplay' tab, and select Legacy: Dark Age of Britain from the server list and hit connect. The auto-downloader will take care of the rest from there.
Overview:
Legacy is set in a fantastical version of 6th century (i.e. dark ages) Britain at the height of the Anglo-Saxon invasion of Britain. The eastern half of Britain has fallen to the saxon hordes, leaving only a handful of free Briton kingdoms in what is modern day Wales and Cornwall. Players begin in Gwent, one of these remaining free kingdoms. The country is heavily divided between the old pagan faith of the druids and the new christian faith brought by missionaries from Rome. Magic exists in this world and is commonly used. Fantastical creatures of celtic, welsh, scottish, and arthurian myths exist as well, though only the more extraordinary of persons (i.e. the players) ever encounter such creatures. For others, these creatures are more the stuff of legends and myth as we think of them today.
Unlike most other servers which use more lenient death systems (akin to WOW and other commercial products), Legacy uses a modified permadeath system. Players are given three respawns from deaths against npc's (i.e. PvE). If they die again, their character is perma-dead. There are no credits to essences. Note however, that deaths to npc's before level 4 do not count against the 3 respawns. Players can also die permanently from pvp combat with other players (subject to rules).
Legacy has a large suite of custom systems and content, the sum total of these systems being a heavily modified system that can only be called D&D in the loosest sense.
Features: Spell Learning:
Legacy uses a custom built spell learning system that requires players to actively learn a spell in game in order to cast it, rather than just selecting it as part of the level-up process. Spells can be learned from saying certain words at certain locations (i.e. words of power), clicking on placeables, or completing certain quests. Most importantly however, Players can teach other players the spells they've learned at a cost of xp. The fastest way to learn spells in Legacy is to convince a veteran caster why he/she should teach you them.
Custom Classes:
Every single player class in Legacy is custom built. Warriors can be two-handed damage dealers, or sword-and-board shieldwallers. Magicians can debilitate and blast, Druids are elementalists, and priests are healers. Woodsmen replace rangers as being archery focused High BAB ranged damage dealers minus the spells and animal companions. Similarly, Minstrels replace bards as a support class with improved survivability and support abilities, but without any spells.
Added to this are all custom capstone classes which complete the level progression. Highlights of such powers include scry (listen in on other player's conversations across the server), hexes (curse other players), and spell combinations (grease + fire = area of death for enemies).
Overall, the classes are much more comparable to Dragon Age than those of the original NWN2 and default D&D classes. More is available on these at the wiki.
Player Useability commands:
In an effort to increase the approachability of the pw to new players, we've added several custom chat commands. Typing %list tells you what areas players are in on the server (%hide takes your pc off this list), %bio allows players to edit their bio at any time. More chat commands are made as the need/ideas arise. If you have an idea for what else may be useful, let the staff know.
E8 Level System
Most PW's allow you to progress up into epic D&D levels (20+). Legacy seeks to remain a low-to-mid fantasy server. Upon reaching level 8, players no longer gain further levels. Rather, further xp results in players being able to purchase additional feats - many of which are only unlocked at level 8. This system has a few benefits:
1 - encounters are much more balanced. [Trying to provide an entertaining challenge to a party of 3 level 20's and 3 level 1-10's is very difficult to do]
2 - There are no insurmountable power gaps. As many pw veterans would tell you, you usually want to get in at the ground floor of a server launch or risk being permanently behind in the 'grind race' of fellow players to be among the most powerful on the server. On legacy, the level and power gain cuts off at 8, and doesn't continue along D&D's otherwise exponential power gain track. Rather, further power gains are marginal only. Several level 4's can take down a level 8 with ease. In legacy, as in life, it's more about who you know and how smart you are than how many hours you spend grinding on npc's.
Legacy Points:
Along those same lines, many PW's suffer from DM favoritism. The most powerful/influential players on a PW will inevitably be those who are friends/buddy buddy (and many times more than that....) with DM's. Legacy uses player recommendations and DM recommendations to tally a character's legacy score. These are based on in character action. The goal of the system is to reward active roleplayers, and avoid dm favoritism ruining the server. Amassing legacy points unlocks rewards for your character (access to capstone classes, etc.)
So Give us A Try
No PW is perfect. They're volunteer projects that face a lot of hurdles. That said, when the elements do come together, the experience can be very compelling.
We hope you give us a try. If you're lost or unsure about something, stop by our forums, or send a DM a question by pressing /d in the chat box.
Thanks
Posts
How many people play on this one regularly?
One gripe I have is you have for some reason lowered the run and walk speeds in game by 50%, making travel times to area a horrid chore, I am unsure why this was done it makes little sense to me and is pretty frustrating. Other than that so far the experience is very well put together and well thought out, there are a few people in the server who i know from the NWN2 community who have been around in it for years (like me.) and also had good things to say to me about it when i logged in.
My character name is: Nihiland and login is: DM_Rask
This is awfully tempting to relive the experience but I'm trying to imagine juggling Project 1999 and this at the same time while still trying to graduate in May and hold down a job. Yeah, I'll see you guys some time this summer.
They probly got permission from a mod beforehand, since it hasnt been locked and its been a few days. Also it isn't like they make money off the PW, I generally think posting something like this is OK. I logged in and have been playing on this PW the past few days and enjoying myself, and I wouldn't have bothered had i not read the write-up by the OP. It isn't like hes whoreing a blog or something, he's showing a community project made by a team of people.
I'd definately say to try this server, its been a great experience for me so far, the DM's are nice and its probably the most balanced class wise i've ever seen, its very unique and a fun Arthurian setting. The creators know their stuff too, great maps, world is not huge but its perfect size for the amount of people who play regularly which is small but imo thats a good thing for this kinda place. I've played on the big PW's with 70+ people and it often just doesn't work with that many people.
I'm sure that's possible. But it doesn't have to be about money or about promoting a blog. I recently asked a mod about creating a very similar topic and was told no, that if I wanted to advertise it had to be in an existing thread with an appropriate topic. Unfortunately no such topic exists so I haven't really posted about it here.
1 - as to the run speeds, you were probably wearing armor. Strength on legacy is a big determiner of what armor you can wear. There's no armor pre-req feats like standard d&d, anyone can put on a piece of armor. Your proficiency as it were is instead tied to your strengh, which controls how well you can wear the armor, and thus how much of a speed hit you take. It's also done for balance reasons so a woodsmen doesn't kite around people in a field harness. If you were hit with a major speed reduction, you were probably wearing too heavy of an armor type for your strength level.
2 - As to PW's in general, if Legacy isn't your cup of tea after a while, there's plenty of other pw's. I'd recommend you try them as well.
3 - Citizen059 if you wanted to post about another pw feel free to do so here. As far as I'm concerned there needs to be some topic on nwn2 pw's, which I kind of tried to make mine (half) about.
One thing about having more DM's, is then you have more than one on at the same time and that way they can tend to the one or two other people online that aren't able to do much without anyone to interact with, providing an event for those left over, or even just something to interact with/a reason to stay on the server.
We are always welcoming more DM's, so if you like the world and want to DM, send me a message.
It resets the res? I have never had that happen. But yes the controls leave much to be desired. If it wasn't for PW's like this one I would not have this game perpetually installed on all my systems for the last 5 years.
not a very big DM presence either which hampers things, but the DM's that are there are fantastic.
Caerleon:
[img]https://dl-web.dropbox.com/get/Public/screens/caerleon preview.png?w=228d9c89[/img]
Glevum:
[img]https://dl-web.dropbox.com/get/Public/screens/Glevum 8.png?w=69dc0119[/img]
Speaking with a Pictish Seer:
[img]https://dl-web.dropbox.com/get/Public/screens/October 2012/NWN2_SS_101512_235433.jpg?w=073f05ce[/img]
The North:
[img]https://dl-web.dropbox.com/get/Public/screens/October 2012/NWN2_SS_101912_231110.jpg?w=2d4de506[/img]