Server vault wipe?

[Badwater]

Based on a suggestion by Ellis, I am considering the merits of a server vault wipe. There are too many uber and grandfathered items that have been kept by players over the years and now that huge changes have come along for Talus, the time is probably right.

But what about your favorite epic character? Well, I think that I would automatically level your character up to level 20 or so and give them basic items and weapons appropriate to their level. Then they can set about getting some of this new loot that is out there, do some quests for cool stuff, etc.

Comments, please.

[Osa]

I am game! Sounds like a logical happening. After all not all survive a natural disaster.

[Edohvi]

When do you plan this wipe to take place? Guess I'd best get the info copied for what chars of my 100+ I'd wanna keep, hehe.

[Edohvi]

Another thing... what about the special items our chars may have quested for from other DMs that are pertinent to that char? Balan's sword was quested through LT and it signifies his position of Protectorate of Selune's Isle... things like that I am asking about.

I suppose this would be used to get everyone to the same poverty level as well? Hehe... well know coins is an issue as in how to earn enough to purchase items.

Also, would the players that aren't around anymore lose their chars as well? The no-shows and the once-in-awhile-shows are the ones I mean. I do know wbo plans to come back soon.

[Lanthar D'Alton]

We long ago did a server wipe and after all of the fallout made a vow not to do so again... I realize the population is vastly smaller now, but the point remains that this prevented a lot of people from returning when they got the urge to return to Talus. Special DM granted items, and a variety of other things are of special concern to people, and this was a big turnoff.

[Badwater]

Nov 29, 2010 0:15:32 GMT -5 Edohvi said:

Another thing... what about the special items our chars may have quested for from other DMs that are pertinent to that char? Balan's sword was quested through LT and it signifies his position of Protectorate of Selune's Isle... things like that I am asking about.

I suppose this would be used to get everyone to the same poverty level as well? Hehe... well know coins is an issue as in how to earn enough to purchase items.

Also, would the players that aren't around anymore lose their chars as well? The no-shows and the once-in-awhile-shows are the ones I mean. I do know wbo plans to come back soon.

Well, those are the questions, aren't they? I can probably count on two hands the number of players that have returned this year. It's not like we would be impacting a player base of 30, 50, 80....

[Badwater]

Nov 29, 2010 12:07:50 GMT -5 Lanthar D'Alton said:

We long ago did a server wipe and after all of the fallout made a vow not to do so again... I realize the population is vastly smaller now, but the point remains that this prevented a lot of people from returning when they got the urge to return to Talus. Special DM granted items, and a variety of other things are of special concern to people, and this was a big turnoff.

Many of the DM items that have been granted are out of balance for the Talus of the present. This is a central issue to proposing the idea to begin with.

It has been a source of discouragement to me as a DM to run a quest and then try to hand out loot, only to find that such-and-such level 24 character already has high epic items, DM custom items, and zillions in gold. There's nothing to shoot for, item-wise, for the next 16 levels! This isn't an isolated example, either.

If we were to actually implement this, then I would have server messages and signs explaining what happened, and that we can look at players' old characters on a case-by-case basis. We would not be deleting the server vault, just starting a new one. All the old characters would still be accessible.

And yes, there have been and are characters that function pretty much as NPCs. Again, that can be dealt with case-by-case.

Realistically, the impact is only on some 6-12 players that come on Talus on a regular or semi-regular basis. There's a sizable majority that have left and are never coming back, no matter what.

[Lanthar D'Alton]

The debate has been held many times, but realistically a server wipe would make many areas... unusable for a significant amount of time... possibly for good as fewer come back because there is less to do, and the time required to level up enough to be able to survive those areas becomes unachievable without more dms and players to group quest to them. The decision long ago after our first server wipe was that it was too disruptive and discouraging to the players. In the end we wound up restoring a large number of characters anyway. I would steer you toward having people make alternate versions of their characters if so desired.

[ellis]

I think if we do a server vault wipe, the grouping exp system should be tweaked a little to encourage more grouping as well. No one plays nwn online because they like to solo, they do it to play with other players. Just a simple 10 level range -25% of exp for 2 players and -10% for each player over 2 in a group would make things more interesting. For example, 4 people in a group would still get 55% of the exp they would have if they soloed it. Just another idea to perhaps help rebuild the amount of players that come and stay with Talus. If there are less epic items available, people will want to be grouping more to try and tackle the epic areas to get themselves epic items.

[HC Sayuri]

I wouldn't be in favor of this for a few reasons.

Many other things need to be done to "balance" Talus way before the destruction of characters and the items they have quested/tested/earned (in many cases over years) for. The experience system really needs a serious re-make for balancing things. Making sure that a new player cant create and max a character in 2 weeks would be a good start.

If the user/character base is so small and the possible number of people (with their items) that would be effected by this is so small as to be inconsequential, then so is the impact deleting those characters would have on balance.

If you REALLY want to do a wipe, then save and transfer the current active player-character databases and wipe/move those who haven't even logged into the server for say, a year.

Nothing says thanks for sticking with Talus better than wiping away the hard work of the loyal.

IMHO
Keep the established and active characters as they are, items and all (and allow them to have their epic-hood to keep that flavor to talus) and remove the rest if its that important to balance, but don't just stop there. There are some seriously amazing scrips out there now that help in balancing a persistent RP server.