Bloodaxe Chronicles

[Taino]

Noted on that Cameron. That is one thing out of many that is needed to be done. Now we sit and wait and see what happens.

[1N54N3]

Instead of sitting around waiting you should offer your help to correct the problems. The staff may not ask you for your help but if they need it, I'm sure they'd appreciate all of our help
_________________
Kyle Rockhammer
Jaggedscar Rockhammer
Sugnar Rockhammer

[Taino]

Sad but true about waiting. I do sit on the Staff and have offered my help, countless times. But If the MODS were in my hands, it would move faster then it is.
So we the staff have to wait for the Head Dm Arathyra to make the final decision and take this go in the right direction. It is her call on this, one way or another. The ball is in her court.

[Arathyra]

Well we have a nice reply, don´t we? Getting out of hand by someone who isn´t even playing for ages on BAR anymore....Good that is my FLAMING reply...*sigh*

One other thing...Why all this now after more then 2 weeks that I made this post.....

[Cameron]

First, I would like to state for the record that I did not sign up to be a staff member because I wanted to moderate forums all day.

To those of you who have posted comments regarding what changes you would like to see to make playing on the 3rd Age more enjoyable, I am truly grateful.

To those who want to flame others in a public forum, I would prefer you just not visit this website. Please do not waste any more of your time nor mine with your flames.

Saying things have been slow on BAR lately would be a vast understatement. Since I seem to be the head dev and have been doing little to no "deving" these past months, I have no quarrel taking responsibility for this. However I want to make a big push to make sure we keep this little mod going and the constructive input that this topic has generated thus far is indeed helpful. Please continue to give us your thoughts.

Yes our head dm is on vacation so we probably won't officially act on anything until she returns, however we can use all the input we can get both before and after she gets back.

[1N54N3]

I was in no way/shape/form "flaming". If that is how it came across you have my appologies. I was simply offering my thoughts on what could be done to make BAR 3 a fun enjoyable place for everyone. Again if you need any help with this let me know, I'd love to do so!
_________________
Kyle Rockhammer
Jaggedscar Rockhammer
Sugnar Rockhammer

[-Grover-]

[Cameron]

[sethendal]

What a surprise, members of BAR letting their emotions fly.

Hard part with the 3rd Age was that the global storyline of the 2nd age that I had created called for something drastic to happen. We had all been somewhat tired as a staff of the 2nd age and what had occured within it (staff infighting, low population, idiotic fights between everyone, exploiting by staff and players alike, etc). The 3rd age was to be a new experiment really of both development and storyline to make it a more RP centric server, what we as the staff had always wanted to make the server. The devs had poured hours into new scripts, tech and the such to make the server much more self-reliable so that the DM's days could be more focused on what they had been signed on for, DM'n and not small issues that had grown into time-sinks for our staff. We wanted to step away from the server and let the players run it and explore without the DM's have to "mock" things constantly.

The introduction of a new land was the culmination of a good ending to the worlds storyline we DM's had made as well as, a way to really use some of the new haks, options and the such to rebuild the world without having to worry about reworking the 2nd age again.

What we ended up doing was making it too hard when DM's weren't there and with the politics and lame antics of the 2nd age from players/staff, we launched the 3rd age with low low numbers, which was not what the 3rd age was designed for. Low numbers meant a stilted economy, etc.

Anyway, long story short, we wanted to make a new world for you guys and ourselves. The 2nd age was a grand pain in the ass in many ways for all involved and personally, I had been at my wits end with BAR by the time the 3rd age was well on it's way into development.

I did not leave because I was lazy or the like. I left because I had been unappreciated, sold out and diminished in what I had done for the realms since I had become DM. Much of what I did had been credited to others with issues of pride and I had been sick of dealing with bratty kids wanting to be spoiled and catered too. Truth was, there's a ton of great people on BAR but the rotten apples tended to make me forget that and as the days wore on, I didn't feel like being a babysitter for players and some of the staff members. Some of my best friends still won't talk due to this place over idiotic issues based on a game and personally, I was sick of hearing about how "he said/he said" all the time when in my mind, this was just supposed to be a game and not a soap opera. Hon-Soril and Genixx still do not speak to one another based solely on BAR and some silly argument that both don't remember who started. So, I washed my hands of the place for the better. I regret that Justgamers dumped BAR but we as a staff had seen it coming for months but due to inaction, failed to jump the gun before it happened. The staff had become stagnant and bitter and it needed to be rebuilt. What you're seeing now is what is necessary. Those in charge now are trying to rebuild after a cancer took over BAR and they have some work ahead of them.

Truth is, my advice is to avoid power struggles, pride and make things as simple as possible. 2nd age we got to complicated and let things get to us as a playerbase and a staff and that basically was our undoing. There are people in this community that have always wanted a lot for free and that's always been the problem. DM's shouldn't be hand-holders, player's shouldn't be fodder. Just do what is fun for the majority.

If you want BAR to be back, people need to stop glory-daying and just realize that those days are gone and new days need to start and that it CAN be fun while being new.

This place has always had potential but it needed to be purged to get things back on track. Things got about power and the such too much and it needs to get back to just having a place to socialize and relax.

[Arathyra]

Nice to hear from you Sethendal. I have always appreciated your input as DM. Also Crow,Gamby,Gennix,Caldahar and the others. I remember my first quest with Crow it was really fun, also all the other quests with several DM´s. It is nice to look back on those times, but we have to move forward.
When I got the former 2nd age online again, I changed the name simply into Bloodaxe Realms to start over as a new world. A world we can have fun, chat, craft and play.
For now there might be less players but that might change in the near future...who knows
_________________
Arathyra,
Head DM

Bloodaxe Staff

[DMSolari]

AMEN SETH! someone finally had the brass balls to tell it as it was....now let the crap go and lets move on to a brighter future.
_________________
DMSolari

[-Grover-]

[sethendal]

Hey peeps How goes it?

I remember the fun times too and there were a lot. Had a lot of great times DM'n you people and even when I was a player here way back in the 1st age.

First thing to do for some of us is to not blame anyone about how things came to be. It was a culmination that got out of control and that's the simple truth. The Staff that is left have the daunting task of trying to bring things back to were it was the 1st and the first half of the 2nd. Lot of bitterness and confusion I'm sure is going on right now. 3rd age was built on good ideas and great potential but I think we made it too complex for it to be accepted. HAK's are great but they limit newcomers because of the steps involved. We knew that but took a gamble. If we had the population, I think the 3rd age would have worked but when it was so barren from fallout from the 2nd Age's 2nd half, it sort of floundered.

I'd advice that to get numbers up, you need to get a GREAT starting area started and some really concise explanations of the world and the expectations. When I was playing NWN and hopping servers "prospecting", the places I stayed had good starting areas and made the first levels go quickly. They had easy insertion into the main social Areas (Carnn Market, etc) so that when you got on, you'd start right where everyone hung out. Trouble with MMOGs for a lot of people is that they're designed to eat up time by making it hard to get places, spacing out merchants, spacing out trainers, etc. I think you guys could get a lot of new comers to stay if you make the starting area incredibly user-easy. Don't make the server easy overall but make things flow well. Lots of signs, ways to find places easy, dumberize things to the point where the poor dm's don't have to answer "Where's the blacksmith" 100 times

Think the thing that most servers do wrong is make cities too complicated. Making things make sense where they are is great. Like the 2nd age cities, every section had a sort of "theme" and that worked well but after a while, only certain places were frequented. If you can fit a lot of "routine" activities like ATS, shopping, healing, etc in one area, you'll save a lot on space and create automatic social areas where people won't be able not to run into people. Don't half ass cities either. The way the Development tool works for cities is that you have a 1000 doors you won't use. The doors that are used, great but those that aren't, either make it obvious that they're useless or lock them and tell them in a msg when they try to pick/open that "This door will never open". Use the space as much as you can so you don't have 5 maps out of 6 that never get used.

I think another good idea would be to really look at spawns. I think if anything, spawns are the killer or savior after layout. Making a starting city have impossible monsters outside of it make people not want to leave and not level, therefore not spend time. FD and I had some cool ideas we used in the 3rd age as far as "spawn circles" which might work well on a revamp of the old 2nd age lands. Make spawns increase in difficulty the farther you head out of civilization points. If you have the starting area, have spawns near it be for starting area levels, then increase their difficulty so that leveling/grinding/traveling increases in reward and difficulty progressively. Make people know the farther they go away, the harder it will be. Have quests cater to certain areas that you want them to know about as well for starters. Use quests at the beginning to help people learn about the realms, the system, the layout, the overal story. If people won't read "useless pages" then they're choosing to be ignorant of the history and should be forwarned that wasting a DM's time with things they could skipped on purpose isn't looked upon highly. MMOG's are hard because those with more time will level faster, be more powerful, etc. So, you can't ever dissuade grinding, camping spawns and to try and fight it is similar to trying to fight the sun from rising. Whether you want to or not, it's going to happen because that's why people are here, to progress at their personal speeds. Find rules that are necessary to enforce (harrassment, serious cheating) and stay fast to those but don't try and make rules that are "boundless" and hard to specify like camping, RP and the such. Camping is such a hassle to try and watch that it becomes a rust on the staff/players. If you design a good spawn system and good quests to keep people busy, the grinding will happen but people won't have to wait in line for one spawn point that's there for their level. Make multiple places for each level range to go, give them quests too that they can have somewhere to go when the place is full. If the server lets players be busy w/out DM help, then DM ran events will be that more special and suprising. You won't have people complaining about no DM quests if they don't become common. Make them special and not to pacify. The minute DM quests become expected is the minute you have players arguing "Thanks for the reward but can I have more, a new axe, more gold, a teleport here, etc". DM's run the quests, not the players remember.

DM's, be DM's and make players know you're the bottom line on rules. Players that bargain when they get caught should be notified that a rules a rule. Thats why it's important to only enforce "measureable" rules that are black and white so that there's no arguing when you enforce them. Either they did it or they didn't. Players that act like they deserve your attention all the time need to be told the truth and sent on their way. L

Also, players are important and should be treated consistently. If you're the DM's brother or someone just new to BAR, same rules apply. Don't get too close to players to where they think they are favored but don't get too far from them where they feel you're domineering. DM's should be the authority and those that follow the rules to a T when playing. The first DM to be a hipocrit is the beginning of the end for a staff's authority.

Anyway, I ramble

[Kierwen]

As usual, well spoken there Seth
I have not played the 3rd age of BAR, nor do i believe i will in all honestly. (for one my computer at the moment cannot open NWN) But BAR will always have a place in my heart. If not for Raasta, FD, Snellopy, Seth, Hon-Soril, Genixx, Fox (Isendar), Niobi and all the others. I never would have made all the friends and shared all the good times i did here.
In my personal opinion the first age was mostly successful because it was simple. As time went on the server became more complicated, a bane i am sure to the DM's as they were expected by most of the playerbase to outdo themselves with a new quest or storyline. At times this is quite difficult, most of the players do not realize how much energy and time is put into creating quests and stories, often on the fly. We all need rest sooner or later to refresh those energies. Players please take no offense to this, but if you want more out of the DM's leave them alone. When they are not stressing over simple things, the creative juices flow easier. Develop your characters persona, show others what they will see of it, and work on your own storylines. it helps to rejuvinate the others into also playing their characters a bit more. The story lines of the server do not always fall upon the developers and DM's of the server. It is your decisions as well. You are a part of the server. if it fails, it is partly because of you. Those of you whom know me, will also know this is not a flame or derogatory at all, just a statement of what i have seen and feel. If you take offense to it, i am truely sorry.