Open Beta - playing or testing?

[Uber_Hoser]

so when may 2 comes what happends then ?? will there be any down time or will it just switch straight to the proper version of ns4?

May 2, 2005 ? omg

[Alrahur]

I just want to say as entered on server after reading about NS4 and factions, i was suprised how i was lead to start my journey, very positive.

I hope you soon start NS4 for real even if level cap is 25 seems the factions offer much of interraction to all, as i read about that 5 type of reactions by NPC's. But now i have to go give it more test but so far the concept is great as factions can strugle on their own without DM's always around, still giving em big roles.

[Callidor]

I've been testing out the servers... and the only thing I can find fault with is the XP rate. To make it optimal, I'd suggest adding larger xp rates to lower level characters of an additional 25% or so. Nothing too heavy, but just enough to make advancement slightly quicker.

If that cant be done, then how about modifying the xp levels a bit, especially for lower levels, with a graduated rate back to the regular xp levels at 10th to 15th.

ALSO, the item level restrictions for piddly +1 items being 16th level (for example) is too strenuous in my opinion. Bringing those item level restrictions down by 30% or so would be optimal as well.

My two cents worth. Thanks!

[FflewdurFflam]

I found that The Circle was easy experience up to level 3, mostly due to the fact that if you got swarmed by goblins you could run back to the last place you saw a nymph or dryad and they'd help you out. The only place that I found was especially difficult was Last Alliance. I started out as a bard, but at the time I had nobody to group with. In the underground I kept getting swarmed and I lost xp almost as fast as I gained it.
I think that it may help players get into the game a bit more (if they're like me at least) if you tone down the xp penalty on respawn for low lvl (1-3) characters. I don't know if this is practical, but just a suggestion to make it easier to get attached to your character.

[Eldaric]

Just a thought - but with NWN2 now well and truely on the radar - I think it would be in NS's best interests to get out of the "Beta" cycle and into "Distribution" cycle.

Let's face it - once NWN2 and the new toolset is released (No more tiles for Terrain - Yipee!!) NWN1 and NS <=4 are going to become yesterday's news pretty fast.

I'm sure Dev team will be keen to get NS 5 for NWN 2 happening ASAP - and of course at that point all development for NS 4 will no doubt grind to a halt.

Not knocking what we have here - although I've yet to stick my head out of Sleeth it seems pretty good (apart from the Lag issues). Just thinking that we should look to the future a bit - and realise that NS 4 is going to be obsolete before it gets out of Beta at the rate that it's going.

[mizrach]

I'm playing here for about 3 weeks now. Will there be a character wipe in the next couple of days?

[Death Dealer1]

lol....no

[OneKnightinChina]

A recommendation:

Focus your energy on learning NS4, not levelling your character. Your character and/or inventory may be lost at any time during this beta process. However, your knowledge of:

* Where to fight
* What loot boss monsters drop
* How to craft
* What types of bonuses are on the items in the store
* Price of items in the store
* Spell changes
* New racial abilities
* Jobs

All that knowlege will stay with you between wipes.

--JoeFaust

I agree totally, when i first started i made a druid soon to be shifter but i learnt that i was in the wrong alliance to be a shifter ^^; but on the bright side now i am in the circle i'll never reagret it i can use animal empathy for help from the wildlife which really helps out when there are no people around to form a party with, and i can summon a creature too making basically a party of 3 that has little problems with the monsters i fight, unless i happen to do a critical failure on the animal empathy at a bad time.

[Elagneros]

unless i happen to do a critical failure on the animal empathy at a bad time.

Tip: don't use empathy in combat. Normally, you'll get a Take 20 on all your empathy rolls which is good enough to empathy most of the animals around unless you have a really crappy score. However, you can't Take 20 in a fight, and that can lead to a critical failure which you don't want. As you've probably seen, that will turn the animal hostile, and you don't want to fight it, because that can turn you hostile towards the Beasts.

Also, the NS 4 wiki has a complete list of all animals and magical beasts which you can use empathy on.

[OneKnightinChina]

i'll be sure to look for that, thank you for pointing it out to me.

[kingfatzo]

wow ! how old is this post ?

[OneKnightinChina]

wow ! how old is this post ?

well i checked the date of this one before i posted "Fri Mar 10, 2006" plus it's a sticky post so it really shouldn't matter.

[Razarr69]

OK, here's a question? IS THIS STILL A BETA? I mean come on...Beta status for what 2-3 years? NWN2 is coming out soon and the Devs are looking to start working on a NS for that as well. Surely, the Beta is over, should we not be up to say Delta or Epsilon (I don't think there is a Greek equivalent for C so...)

Is there a plan to ever let us "Beta Testers" play the game for real? All this time, I thought I was playing...Sheesh, I've only been testing. Now I feel like I am a software tester again...and I thought I was a Database Administrator. So as Beta testers it is our job to find any and all bugs and attempt to break the system? Find ways of crashing the server? Exploit any and all things we find to the extreme to see what happens? Divide by zero where possible, etc?

Just joking, but surely this thing is not a Beta anymore. Make it real and post patches if something comes up, or are there still planned wipes and rewrites coming up? From what I can tell, this world is fully developed and ready to ship.

[P. Fricebottle]

Yes, this world is nearly fully developed. However, theres still a little bit left for the Devs to work on. It is coming out of Beta soon though, with planes (the final areas) coming out left and right along with a pretty stable environment, so no more Beta for too long.

[Flailer]

Yeah, it is pretty much no longer in beta, so we could arguably remove the tag at any point. I think we'd feel better about ourselves if the remaining two factions that don't have jobs got them before we removed the beta status. But, there's a couple changes coming up that might cause us to remove that tag even before that...

Until then - thanks for testing!