How I Feel Sometimes On Sigil

[*Mick64]

I've had plenty of character conflicts who where plenty enjoyable and didn't need to be discussed beforehand. It all comes down to mature players who care about the story, not "winning".

[*Hydra]

IMO The issue here is similar to that on BG which is that there is a lack of player driven events with direct conflicts against large amounts of other players.

Player versus Player conflicts never, ever end well unless its between X people who've basically discussed the outcome OOCly beforehand. We should avoid those.

However, more chaos in the town would be a breath of fresh air past the 'Harmonium shield' everyone keeps using.

Now-a-days this sadly seems to be the case. Idk why people take things so personally now and cant just have fun in the story.

I'm not really sure why, but didn't really have that issue on Astoria and there was plenty of vampires murdering random players, elves being kidnapped and worse by drow and such without much complaint. Different times I guess?

Anyway, Conflict doesn't almost mean PvP, people can have different ideologies or negatively effect each other without need of mechanical combat to resolve it.

I've been on server like these, even if the rules were implicit, people became revengeful OCCly and the "community" was split in many cliques assembled around big mouths and a lot of the "RP" was based on OCCpolitics on MSN/Skype and metagaming.

[*Tomekk]

Factions have several different viewpoints in them. You can be a good Doomguard and prevent Entropy from spreading, or an evil one who actively creates Entropy. You can be a neutral Harmonium and uphold the law to the letter, or a nice one and let petty criminals go. The thing is, you can interpret the core factional view to suit your general alignment. It might not get you promoted way too fast, but you'll be involved in something. And you can always do some casual infighting when you meet your polar opposite viewpoint. :P

As for getting involved in long running plots... the easiest thing is to contact the DM in charge. I've found the PCs handling them to not always be the most keen to involve new blood. :(

[*Hydra]

The main issue is that there aren't enough thing happening, and there are even less thing happening depending on your timezone.

[*zethrenx99]

IMO The issue here is similar to that on BG which is that there is a lack of player driven events with direct conflicts against large amounts of other players. There have been a few of these but they are often short lived and resolve relatively quickly from what I have experienced. This tends to lead to more of a social setting then what one may expect from a RP setting which I believe hasn't existed for several years now.

On BG the issue is entirely staff and their reluctance to any player conflicts, Here I think the problem might be in setting which causes some issues and here is why: Sigil itself is untouchable by design, Deities have no power in Sigil and the controlling factor of Sigil is as powerful as deity making coup impossible which makes any grabs for any tangible power in Sigil uninviting to most. Sigil is also a melting pot of everything in the multiverse and has no naturalized denizens which means that discrimination against anything wouldn't make very much since as a society composed of everything, which leaves out alot of different conflicts here. Sigil originally has no law or order nor rules, regulations ect. With the exception of a self declared slayers of mercy which where simply executioners to anything that tried to overthrow their claim to power which is why Sigil is the most profitable and dangerous places in the multiverse. Here, however, there are factions to keep law and order with alot of npc influence in the harmonium. So you have a society mutually accepted and unchallenged law and order with no possibility of coups and no reasons for discrimination and it leaves a populace reluctant to reach out for any conflict driven plots. Now these are all generalizations based on what i've seen since I started here which wasn't too long ago. But 90% of the rp outside of factions i've seen has involved more of a social interactions with people cuddling around the campfire and chatting all day most days.

I think some EM run events with some players to try and bring some chaos back to Sigil could do wonders for the current setting. A troll eating an Ilithid because it didn't give him the big stick he wanted shouldn't be that odd of a sight here. I think maybe some staff propelled rumors regarding the existence of the lady of pain as potentially just a folks tale could be interesting. From what I understand anyone that has seen her disappears or erupts into a fountain of blood and is more of an enigma then a ruling presence. Once law and order becomes more ambiguous, then some other interesting events could pop up, inter-planar slavers kidnapping people and hiring others sort of deal. Corruption in the fated. Things of that nature.

I'm also a socially anxious person irl so the small chat things I tend to stay away from unless it pertains to my characters niche or friends/companions so I understand where you're coming from. I'd personally like to see more RP/adventure type settings over the Social type but that might just be me, Haven't really seen anything like that since the old RP servers on nwn1, namely Astoria.

[*Cadence]

I've had plenty of character conflicts who where plenty enjoyable and didn't need to be discussed beforehand. It all comes down to mature players who care about the story, not "winning".

Same here

[*Tingly]

IMO The issue here is similar to that on BG which is that there is a lack of player driven events with direct conflicts against large amounts of other players.

Player versus Player conflicts never, ever end well unless its between X people who've basically discussed the outcome OOCly beforehand. We should avoid those.

However, more chaos in the town would be a breath of fresh air past the 'Harmonium shield' everyone keeps using.

Now-a-days this sadly seems to be the case. Idk why people take things so personally now and cant just have fun in the story.

I'm not really sure why, but didn't really have that issue on Astoria and there was plenty of vampires murdering random players, elves being kidnapped and worse by drow and such without much complaint. Different times I guess?

Anyway, Conflict doesn't almost mean PvP, people can have different ideologies or negatively effect each other without need of mechanical combat to resolve it.

I've been on server like these, even if the rules were implicit, people became revengeful OCCly and the "community" was split in many cliques assembled around big mouths and a lot of the "RP" was based on OCCpolitics on MSN/Skype and metagaming.

Surely there is value in simply discouraging that sort of behavior without discouraging inter-pc conflict? Griefing, metagaming and harassment are already against the rules. If someone is immature enough to do those things as a result of in-character conflict then deal with it like any other offender.

[*zethrenx99]

Yes and no. Player driven plots without em/dm assistance can only extend in their effects (negative or otherwise) to the characters involved which means that to a new player or a player such as in the OP who is unaware or otherwise not involved in these clicks will not feel any of the impact and certainly wouldn't have been able to participate.

Also, without em/dm assistance you are limited in scope of tangible opponents and scale because you can not have and control the amount of npc's that may otherwise be involved.

My point was that i feel that the player base is a bit uninspired to act against the wellfare of Sigil and could use a bit of staff propelled help. I use Astoria alot to draw examples from and it wasn't without its own issues, but for instance, the vampire cult was lead by an em for a while to get players inspired and involved, then once sufficient players where able to take control of the situation the em stepped down and promoted a pc to take his place RP wise. and then there were internal politics as to over throwing said pc, or maybe the pc decides to step down and claimed his predecessor. It adds alot of interesting culture based on player conflict that got alot of otherwise excluded pc's included in something.

[*rapsam2003]

My point was that i feel that the player base is a bit uninspired to act against the welfare of Sigil and could use a bit of staff propelled help. I use Astoria a lot to draw examples from and it wasn't without its own issues, but for instance, the vampire cult was lead by an em for a while to get players inspired and involved, then once sufficient players were able to take control of the situation the em stepped down and promoted a pc to take his place RP wise.

This kind of thing is good and bad. Good because it promotes participation; bad because that participation is controlled by the staff. Frankly, DM/EMs should be facilitators, not plot drivers.

[*Darker_Thought]

I've had plenty of character conflicts who where plenty enjoyable and didn't need to be discussed beforehand. It all comes down to mature players who care about the story, not "winning".

Agreed. The best player experiences I've had on any Nwn 2 server is where conflicts between mature players has taken place. Be it Shadow wars of the Drow Matron Houses, to the Undersigil politics of power.

When enough mature players "on each side" are involved usually the structure to keep it together holds. It's never without risks...but yet again. A world without "unplanned/chaotic" risks would be...boring. When you're character have something to loose...Now "that" is interesting while in a conflict.

I hope more darkness will come back to Sigil one day. We have had some good players balancing the scale on the evil side. Hope that time returns not to far into the future :P

Just my personal opinion.