Please post your opinion on Umbra, if you've tried it, and what you'd like to see in a successor for GWP.

Speaking hypothetically of course.

A reminder of Umbra's features -> here

I defiantly Liked it, level progression was a lil tedious at times, but that was due to inactivity :p

I was having fun until I lost my internet connection

As for what would be nice to see in a successor to GWP... I think high reward should be more rare, and require more effort. Talking largely about items / treasure, but also xp / kills.

Even at the highest levels, there should probably not be any run-of-the-mill creatures which drop the best loot in the game. An example from GWP would be the Lewis Estate, or the City of Shadows. Reserve it for bosses and high-chests, and make it hard to get them. Or at least time-consuming. Possibly even restrict the best ones to one-time-per-character (talking about treasure) to prevent camping the boss, or whatever? Logically also, it makes sense that way.

As for xp... Less farmable areas. Nothing like the Arachnids near jorea where a character can go in at level 12-15 and come out at 25 a few hours later... Mix it up a bit more. There must be about 12-15 spawn-points just in the outside areas for Arachnids, and every single one spawns spiders... It doesn't change much at all in the crypt-thingy..

Consider nerfing certain spells (if possible) that turn almost any normal area into a cakewalk. Flame Weapon/Darkfire, Haste...



P.S. HARDCORE STATUES!

Whoops, the third poll option got lost in the wind.

I enjoyed Umbra itself.

I wasn't a fan of having to go through the distinct newbie area before you actually got to Umbra. The newbie area itself was built quite well, I just prefer having everyone on the same mod at lower levels - just better for interaction with other players (even if you are not in party).

I would also prefer to see "common" magic items being transferable between characters - like basic suits of armour, weapons, etc. Not only does it make things a little easier for your characters, but it also means people sell stuff once they have a couple of them, making the shops worth visiting to buy stuff.

I thought the AI was really good. A lot of little things really added to Umbra - the need to acquire gems because coins have weight, the existence of the bank (though I found it too expensive too actually use ).

For a successor for GWP, I'd like to see stuff I like Such as:
* monsters and humanoids for enemies rather than animals
* relatively lower levels (1-25ish)
* like Kal, clamping down on farmable areas like the arachnids and the ice beetles in Fenguard
* love doing quests over farming areas for xp (just took a character through to level 40 on GWP and didn't complete all the Jorea or FM quests)
* less gold/slowed xp progression.

Just on the quest side of things.

I didnt find the quests that enjoyable (maybe it was just the game (nwn)) but I do like the 'easy read' quests like go to this place and kill X amount of creatures or collect X amount of creature bits etc, can have it random that way too i suppose, that way get the player to go all over the map?..

Iv played too much lotro, and those were my fav type of quests, easy for my minstrel (healer class)

meh i dunno

Anyone else prefer MMO-style "kill x of y" quests over the ones present in GWP/Umbra?

I enjoyed Umbra.
The main starting quest was great fun with the 4 or so ways to complete it.

I'm not a fan of the go here kill X and come back...

i never played umbra, but what i find interesting in WOW is the gear lvls, you can do this and this dungeon in your normal gear and by doing them and getting the gear then you can get better gear that allows you to do that dungeon.

Quest wise, make them too cryptic and alot of people will give up, the go kill x of y type of quests are ones that even I can understand.

Two words "low magic"
there shouldnt be 20 people running around the server with +48 longswords etc.

Yeah. It was good fun in the early days of GWP when level 15+ characters were still running about desperate to find that rare +2 Longsword

I like a combination of the two.

That said, it seems a few of us old timers won't have the time to spend hours online at a time like we used too. If it is the case that we might pop on to play for maybe an hour at a time, then there is certainly (IMO) a place for the "Go kill the bandit chief who is plaguing the village"-type quest as opposed to more complicated quests.

yeah combination of both go kill this dude, and then some themed based quests, that require previous quests to be completed before you can do them, and to be honest quests that require partys, eg you need 3-4 people to do so it makes that party play important in some areas.

I think if you are thinking about a successor to GWP, it shouldn't have new and complicated rules. I think you should consider keeping it simple and not too different from what everyone is used to. Then it is more likely to be enjoyable for the wider community.

Also, perhaps something that continues from the GWP story would be good. It could be in a different part of the world or on the other side of the same continent. Because GWP is ours, we should feel free to use parts of it in a new module, such as factions, stories and monsters.

I think it is important to have good dialogue, but I find that when just one or two people make a module, then the dialogue and stories can suffer because people prefer to spend their time on content and missions, etc. It might be good to get a writer who can just fill in dialogue and create stories.

You could also try finding all the useful haks and mods that people have made to help with the problems the unhaked game has. And spend time on the infrastructure of the module from the start, not just creating it piece by piece and worrying about the structure later.

I think if you could do NWN2 then that might be good, but only if enough players are happy with it. Otherwise NWN1 is obviously the best/only option.

You should have good management policies so the module can run online smoothly. Players should know what is expected of them, and DMs must enforce the rules and give each player, both new and old, the same treatment. There should be clear guidelines which are enforced correctly. Don't just allow anyone to be a DM, but they must be trustworthy and active. You could also perhaps add some monitoring/logging of DM activities so you can check up on what they are doing.

Also think about the main problems that GWP had, and try avoiding the same mistakes in the new module.

It should also be new, not Umbra, I think. What about "The Eastern Divide" ? Lower altitude than The Pass, and near the East Coast of the same continent.