101 Ways To Fix Neversummer

[Terminal Insanity]

This is not ment as a troll or a flame, or as flame bait.
I just want to see people post what they feel needs fixing in neversummer.

the slaves liked ns4... the okies liked ns4... GoN liked ns4... and countless unaligned/non-bigname guild players...

It's ns4 that diden't like the players. what ns4 diden't like was giving people something to do. Rules are changed too often. important features are broken, and then left broken. cheaters/liars/rule breakers run rampant.

The Problems:

The Rules:
Too scattered. Not well thought out. Randomly enforced. Ignored. Modified. Let me just list my personal experiences...
Thou shalt not abuse the Shout channel. It is abused. Shout has always been fairly open in neversummer, but the things some people call me and others in shout is better left for tells... and thats not all. Some people (you know exactly who you are) like to use shout to spread lies about other players, initiate and then twist situations around, and just plain troll.
Thou shalt not participate in or initiate combat in Avendell. This rule's wording is just wrong. Aside from that, the whole avendell area needs to be set to nopvp. Just like the shops. People break this rule every day (usualy to attack me...) I've been slain for killing avendell guards (who, at the time, autoattacked me because of a scroll scribing incident), no less then 5 minutes after was PKed outside avendell's inn. no less then 20 minutes from being followed for a couple hours being debuffed/drained/curst outside the inn.
Thou shalt not attack players at the respawn points. This rule has changed somwhere allong the lines of: Thou shalt not attack players at the respawn, unless that player is an enemy of the bind's faction. I've been slain for defending myself against a PvP attack while i was trying to levelup off guards. DMs have, on several occasions, told me not to attack players in bind rooms, and i've seen people get punished for it (as they should) but recently i've been getting attacked in bind rooms and DMs just tell me its their faction and they are allowed to attack... this is bs. If they are allowed to attack, so am i. Its ME thats raiding THEIR faction. ether the rule is no combat at all, or its open game. Why do they get to attack first? i'm the one that walked into the building knowing exactly what was there, they diden't.
Thou shalt not log out and back in to reset spells or hit points during combat. Every other mid-level character that i attack, usualy logs out before they die. High level chars usualy just relog for a minute to get rid of bigbys and then they continue their battle or run away.

Now, thats just the official rules. there are new ones, like these:
Thou shalt not harm the brotherhood: The brotherhood is a special guild. If you are attacked by them, you should hope you die, because if you win, you're a griefer, cheater, @#$#@, @#%@^@, &%#, #$^#, $^#&$%, ^&$&^, just to name a few. Your name will appear in several shouts, mixed with cuss words, ban threats, and "i'm the owner of neversummer" messages. and then usualy following is a few DM tells about how you have been harassing the people that keep attacking and dying
Thou shalt be harvested. It is not considered griefing or exploiting at all if a player repeatedly kills you for items or xp. (ie: silver road:avendell, or kill/raise/kill/raise/kill/raise in a enemy faction city)


PvP: Has become obliterated. This is how it used to play back in the day: No Killing in avendell, or bind rooms. No Repeat-killing outside of said areas. Period. Everything else is fair game. It worked. It was fun. There were lots of people who enjoyed these rules. What happened? The big following that ns had has moved on, due to lack of updates. How long has this mod been out? and not a single new area, and all anyone ever hears is "soon". I know i know, its free, they don't have all the time in the world, blah, blah, blah, it doesnt change the fact players still get bored. I understand the Devs don't have all the time that the mod would like, but it's slowly killing the module.
Now, back during the good days, the new areas were not required because the players all had fun PvP without much crying, but server downtime, vault wipes, etc, etc, have lead to older players taking a break for a while, new players come in and play the game the way they want with their own ideas of how the rules should be enforced, and now the module is crammed with children that cry because they see "Lost: 0gp; Lost: 0xp". And when i say crammed with children, i literaly mean, CRAMMED WITH CHILDREN. I don't know how many players i've been shouted about not killing because "hes just a kid" or "hes not old enough to understand" wow THEN THEY SHOULDNT BE PLAYING. If someone can't understand the concept of faction PvP, they are probably too young to be playing the game in the first place, let alone a PvP module.

Familiars: they disappeared after one update without warning... never been here since, no devs or dms have ever said anything about it other then "its broken" but it was NOT broken before the update, therefore you have the code and know exactly what is wrong with it. Why was this feature broken and left broken?

Broken Areas: go to giant mountain. 80% chance only 2 or 3 areas in the whole area actualy respawns. You are lucky if you catch the server after a crash. Again, no Devs ever acknowledge the fact this happens. Do they even know it happens? I can't log into my bug tracker account anymore, but i have a faint memory that's telling me it was on there and then assigned, moooooooonths ago.
Anyway, incase a dev is reading: If you log out (including client crash or respawn to other server) while dead, that area stops respawning. Any mobs left on the area will still be there for the next person, but they won't respawn if you kill them. Drops are not removed from that area ether, niether are the random placeables (torches etc)

Server Crashes: Are a feature. People look forward to this. yes, this is bad. no, don't fix it. people want crashes because it fixs alot of things, namely, the broken areas. stop breaking this feature untill the areas are fixed please =/ Even DMs use server crash tricks to fix areas, since nobody is ever around to reboot the server. I don't know how many times i've logged in to do some XPing and ended up around the sea caves killing imps and crap for minimum xp, because they are the only thing that spawns. (wich they recently took away, new xp script)
This should not be fixed simply by putting another bind point in the Dark Forrest (wich is needed anyways, for several other reasons).




The biggest problem in ns4? New players come in, and it doesnt matter if they are killed at lvl 1 or 20, alot of these people think that PvP is actualy against ns rules. Not many people actualy KNOW the rules. The ones that don't know end up crying about how they are being harassed/griefed, or running around breaking the rules and getting away with it by trying to be some kind of martyr. the ones that do know, just play by the new player's rules because thats all they ever hear about in shout.

Yeah, so everyone remember, if you think you have a good cause, you're allowed to break the rules! Just make sure you're realy blaintant about it, and make sure you have a few other friends that would agree that the rule needed breaking. You can kill anyone, anywhere, with a good martyr story.

Eh this is becoming a rant, and starting to sound more of a troll... anyways, to get back to the point...

Rules need to be simplified and posted INGAME and in an easier to find spot ON THE SITE
And they need to stop changing
players need to realize theres no penalty when they are killed, unless they are attacking an enemy faction.
players need to stop being allowed to break rules to "better" the world. I don't care if you think killing me in avendell is the right thing to do. You wouldn't agree if i did it to you. just be lucky the DMs punish me for defending myself.
Shout channel is allowed to be Used heavily, but only for informative/helpfull/friendly reasons. New players seem to think that theres a rule about saying anything in shout (wich they shout about often)
AREAS. OMG We need AREAS to get the mod going again.

[Nemesis Revised]

That is a good one term! hehehe; and yeh the whole freakin place is packed with crybabies. at least i still have grown up friends present. we kill crybabies; come join us sometime. brotherhood? seen none so far.

[Terminal Insanity]

thx for the reply =) at least someone diden't take it offensivly lol


And something that i wanted to mention that you kinda reminded me about...

GUILDS!!

Start forming guilds. Good guilds, bad guilds, everything. take everyone out. Guilds are what keep new players safe, guilds are what keep the game freash with blood, and guilds are what keeps people tied into the game... unless they leave AS a guild... wich usualy happens when new guilds stop forming and the older ones just keep growing and growing

Don't worry about picking up newbies, they'll learn and theres a fair chance they'll build a helpfull character if you help them. it's worth the time.

Guilds lead to PvP, but also protect against it.
PvP leads to just fun, mayhem, challenges, and a never ending quest for world domination! muhahaha! ehh well a guy can dream can't he?

[TGPO]

Let me respond to this as a player, take off my DM hat and give my opinions. I say this so as to point out that what I say here has no "official" weight or consequence.

I agree with you on the fact that NS4 has become packed with cry babies. It is a PvP world and too many people just dont understand that. There should however be limits. Too many people took PvP to read as open arena and just went on their merry way killing everyone and everything. Sure it may be fun for the uber player to walk around squashing lowbies for the uber player, and every once in awhile even justified. I have seen too many players though who made it their whole entertainment, thus destroying utterly the enjoyment of anyone too low a level to defend themselves effectivly. Even so, many will PM DeputyDog with every little PvP incident who in turn comes down on the DMs to clean things up. See the main webpage for a good example.

The no killing in bind points needs IMO to be revisited in that it needs to be enforced as the Avendell rules. That was part of the drive behind the no binding in hostile factions, but doesnt address the rogue faction member who is legal to bind there but hostile to the guards and everthing else. If a low level player attacks an invader regardless of spawn point or not then that low level player should feel the effects of the rules about combat there as well.

Logging out in combat is another issue I have a problem with. I'll admit that I have done it, mostly because I had a level 30 PK nutter following my level 7 or 8 around and I was tired of getting killed by him. I could have relogged and hammered him with harrasment, but it was just as easy to avoid him. It also had the wonderfull effect of annoying the hell out of him. On the other hand logging out to exploit failures in the game engine is cheap and cheesy. I would be one of the first to support a five minute timer on logout. Because of the exploit (and the DMs can and will pop you for it) and the fact that I dont believe in meta gaming (mules, inter character transfers, ect).

As to some of the other points you made term I cant take even an un official stance on. I'll have to put my hat back on and say that I will make a stronger effort to spend more time in game watching and investigating some of the things you have laid out.

Thanks for your observations though, all of them valid concerns.

[Netrom.dk]

/EDIT oh well TGPO beat me to it

/second edit: sry that i deleted my msg term while you typed your reply...

/third edit: the text is back i finally found the cache for it (it was on the otehr comp) since TI allready quoted it it might as well get back (i should just disable my own edit funktion):

Thou shalt not participate in or initiate combat in Avendell.

In the last few months i havent seen anyone in any combat in there. And the incident you refer to about the guards are around a ½ year old, and that problem has been dealt with.

Thou shalt not attack players at the respawn points

This was put in place to to prevent players from keep killing 1 that was bound at that shard, and thereby preventing them from dying.
That means that if they are bound in that room then its suppose to be safe for them, if your not bound there then its not safe, so the rooms are not a safe hideout for invaders.

Thou shalt not log out and back in to reset spells or hit points during combat

hmm i guess this is one of those outdated rules, since the bug where you regain hp and spells have been fixed.

Thou shalt not harm the brotherhood

This has never been a policy, and trust me some of the brotherhood members have been into some problems with the DMs as well for numerues (sp?) of incidents.

kill/raise/kill/raise/kill/raise in a enemy faction city

dont we have a script to prevent this? if you respawn then they cant rez you anyway.

[Terminal Insanity]

I'll admit that I have done it

as have i =( I did it quite a bit when the brotherhood had their army on and stationed EVERYWHERE i went... if one attacked me, i'd just log into my other char... they knew where all my chars were, but i kept them all running back and forth between them... i got about 15 minutes of leveling between char relogs once lol

In the last few months i havent seen anyone in any combat in there. And the incident you refer to about the guards are around a ½ year old, and that problem has been dealt with.

Yes, i know =) But it's a good example, and sticks out in my mind whenever i think of avendell pvp heh, and avendell PvP does still happen...

Thou shalt not attack players at the respawn points

This was put in place to to prevent players from keep killing 1 that was bound at that shard, and thereby preventing them from dying.
That means that if they are bound in that room then its suppose to be safe for them, if your not bound there then its not safe, so the rooms are not a safe hideout for invaders.

Yeah, and its a good rule, but it's only half-way enforced... There should be no PvP in bind rooms for any reason... Now, i know i'm a bit bad here... i've been known to chaise people and kill them in their bind points, but only if we have fought and they ran inside, and i'll usualy wait to see where they run... if it's towards the bind point i'll let them bind before i finish them off

Thou shalt not log out and back in to reset spells or hit points during combat

hmm i guess this is one of those outdated rules, since the bug where you regain hp and spells have been fixed.

yeah but people can still abuse it to get rid of some spell effects, like bigbys =( and it's usualy the high HP guys that do this... they stock 500 heals so you can't kill them unless you use bigbys, and then they log when you use bigbys.

kill/raise/kill/raise/kill/raise in a enemy faction city

dont we have a script to prevent this? if you respawn then they cant rez you anyway.

It can partly be abused still even if you respawn... if they hit you with death magic at just the right time, or if they use KD, your char will get up but not be sent to the other area.
This could be fixed by moving and THEN healing the dead player, instead of healing and then moving him

[Lework]

Ns3 took a while to develop to the level it was at...so will ns4.

just gotta be patient..

the pvp in NS4 is the only reason I play, a lot of other servers have more content than ns3 and 4 put together but they dont allow pvp and i feel thats limiting the game. Im not one of those people who run around killing people but i do defend my factions and if you do commit a crime or such i will go after you.. Anyone can make a build to kill 95% of the stuff on any mod..that sucks.

ns4 is the only mod i know of with the unique setup, and once the epic areas are added with more areas and loot to gather a lot of people will come back, people talk about ns4 in other servers!, it will also make pvp more exciting. I really hope to see all the okies and such back b/c they made the mod fun for me - kinda sucky for the noobs though..

broken areas suck, but there are other places just as good to level than MT. I have several toons who have never been there besides to res people.


I log on almost everyday to see if anything interesting is happening - the dm's are being awesome and spawning epic mobs which is awesome - we get pwned sometimes but then again we dont have gear designed to do much dmg to them, or resist a lot of dmg. its still damn fun.

Patience!

[deathdearler1]

i agree with alot term has stated. alot of the problems anyone has is mostly because the rules change regularly. i however know the rules, my friends know the rules, and my guild knows the rules. which is probably the reason why we catch some slack sometimes over what we do. i have killed players of a much lower lvl sometimes repeatedly, but it was in a rping manner that didn't upset anyone. i have also hunted a party thru the gnolls with another person who has a char with the same name as mine. again nobody got real upset but they did enlist the help of a friend that was higher lvl than us. the enforcement of the rules or even the placement of the rules in game so that everyone can read them would be an improvement. the one thing that makes this bad is that the direction we are headed now means that for the server to interact with each other in a civile manner means constant supervision. i don't like the thought of that.

[JesterOI]

(mules, inter character transfers, ect).

A 5 minute relog timer wouldn't do anything to prevent that... Well, atleast for the people with friends.

I agree with the "full of crybabies" part.
I remember an event that happened, my druid was killed by 2 characters while levelling up in ordean caves. I remembered the account names. Then awhile later I happened to have a chance at repaying the favour. I run in, heal one of the noob characters that I had no qualms with, then FoD the other one that had killed me earlier. Best part was I got to kill that player with the character that they had killed, it was beautiful!
Then the "crybaby" effect took over.
The player I had healed in that group immediately relogged with his high level mage (so Diablo II, no integrity) and started chasing me down. (No gratitude) I made it back to Avendell alive, all well and good. Then I started getting the, "she doesn't know what she doing, she barely knows how to play the game, it's ok that she killed you because she is your enemy faction" type whining. Then to top it off he demands a coffer in repayment for what was a debt owed to me. So sad and pathetic.
Game experience has nothing to do with anything, if they kill they should expect to be killed.
Also I don't see how the "enemy faction" part made it ok for her to kill me, but not for me to kill her? Such a moronic statement.

Then just recently, the same player that had tried chasing me down with his mage taunts my level 1 in Avendell which automatically provokes an attack from my character, and has the same effect of showing my character as initiating the combat in the logs (I was watching tv at the time waiting for the store to open, 15 feet from the keyboard and mouse...). Of course my character was killed.
Then what happens?
This loser immediately spouts out, "I got a SS of you attacking me first!!!"
So one of two things just happened:
This player for a second time proved his lack of integrity by provoking my character to attack him and then killing my character in Avendell and trying to make it look like I was the aggressor.
And/or:
For the second time proved his stupidity by being too dense to put together the fact that taunting provokes attacks from the target. Which he should have noticed when he did the same to another character that was standing nearby.

I have more stories, but I think I have provided a adequate picture.

Filling up with crybaby kids? I sadly have to agree because of the stupidity and dishonesty I see on the servers.

[Yonwe]

As Netrom said, TGPO beat us to it, but I'll comment as just another player too if you can indulge me the post

I'll sound off on the topics I too feel passionately about...

- PvP - Needs to go back to the strong-stomach days of yore. I remember a time when, between the hours of 8pm and 2am central, if you weren't 20th level or higher, you were going to be killed on the Silver Road, and you didn't stand that good a chance of living even if you were 30 or higher. It was common, indiscriminate, and harsh, but you got used to it fast, got on with life, and in turn enjoyed doing it back.
If nothing else, people should appreciate the finer points of defending; I understand that, as a concession to practicality, NS is the only city worth defending due to everyone's playing habits, but high-level characters guarding cities are a wonderful thing. Let's face it: victories are the best when you risk something for them, and by the time you're raiding cities, you can do it because you come out of fights alive more often than dead. By the time you're 25th, there simply aren't threats anymore from most cities; PvP ensures that you must always risk your neck to make some gains.
No character in NS is omnipotent or sacrosanct; be humbled by another player with some dignity and move on with life.
That said, as a player, there are days and days when I want nothing more than to PK every character I run across for these very reasons... if people don't start toughening up to this, the problem is only going to get worse and worse until a) PvP is removed by devs who are sick unto death by the complaining, or b) PCs just stop playing because it's too much of a headache to get involved with it anymore.

- Shout - I admit, I've gotten lax with enforcing the Shout rule. Why? Because if I send a Tell as a DM to a player who's comfortable with bitching to the whole server about how he was "ganked" or "harassed," you can only IMAGINE what I'll be hearing about for the next half-hour once they know a DM is online and they can send me Tells back. And it's worse when I break down and send a Shout myself as a DM to silence everyone at once, because then the whole SERVER will complain.
This is something I'd ask everyone in NS to help with... if you see someone abusing Shout, send them a Tell asking them to stop. Peer pressure can help a lot when done en masse.

- Guilds/Favoritism - People slander us DMs with calls of favoritism on a daily basis. I myself have been called a Slave, Okie, Windago, DD, and PhD more times than I could count But the only "favoritism" I'll admit to with most NS guilds is that for the most part, they're the most upstanding citizens I've seen. Guilds seem to take the time to learn the rules and, for the most part at least, follow them much more strictly than the average player, certainly because they know people are going to get mad and they have to be "clean" when we DMs come around.
I'd be very happy if more people formed guilds like the ones that used to be common in NS... PK, RP, friendship, it doesn't matter as long as you keep it civil and lighthearted. Guilds get to be a problem when you take everything so seriously that someone passing gas in your direction is reason enough to phone your five friends so they log on and you can "pwn th4t n00b whooz h4r4ass1ng teh gu1Ld!!!!" Seriously, people, it's just a game.

Well, I guess that's enough from me for the moment. Vale!

[JesterOI]

No character in NS is omnipotent or sacrosanct

Speak for yourself!

[Karak Maximus]

I've been playing for about a year and the only things that i really wish would change is the lack of updates, changing of the rules, and an offical post *on the main site* detailing PVP rules (include a section on Disarming people and stealing their weapons....).

I mean YAAAY we can be lvl 40 again but ummm where are the epic areas? Hard to get to 40 without epic areas, that is unless you *"Donate"*.

Also for the rules changing, for a while we couldn't use haks to give characters wings, then we could, and now it will get ya punished again.... First of all I love characters with wings, tails, etc... adds to the diversity of characters and diversity is good.

Other thing is the PvP, personally I've never had many problems but there are a few people that do some really a$$%#%# stuff. Like Disarming you and taking ur weapons, and running away twith them.... Yes its in character but when u worked ur A$$ off to get those nice new swords its just a pain to lose em to some disarm. Thing like this need to be addressed 1 way or the other. Allow it or disallow it.

Also, while on this server I've learned to dread the word "Soon", just FYI soon means some time in the NEAR future. Generally this means 2-3 weeks on a server. If more then that give a time scale like Soon in ratio to how long the universe has existed!!!! which is the meaning of soon i've learned to expect.

But with all these problems i still think that NS4 is the BEST server i've ever played on and I love being a part of its community. The DM "God" system is awsome, even better now that more dms are active. And the Faction system is just plain kewl. All in all my favorite server, when its down i don't even play NWN.So a Good Job to you DMs and Devs for making such a great server but i think there is need to improve on this already awsome server.

Also poost something in the rift portal about needing to be on server 1 for certian cities and server 2 for others, meet a new guy last night that almost left becuase its was always black screen, he made 5 characters before he made it into AO...... that needs fixed, we may be losing new players without them ever playing.

[Donan]

Well I know of one guild up and coming… I can only tell you this, look to the sky and run in fear


But more on topic… well not to much to say but I agree except *cough* the person who hunted me down just to disarm me and steal my weapons..but hey even then (although admittly I was annoyed) I didn’t go complaining on shout…but I did try a little groveling to my god for help (couldnt help myself with the crybaby stuff)


I did leave here for a long time but remember when I first joined and was just getting creamed all over, for most people, I think, would react like me never played on a true pvp server wasn’t sure how to react but within a couple days learned to see how things worked and not only settled in but enjoyed it a lot more, even though I usually died. With that in mind I am just saying maybe take a minute and explain it to someone new, someone had done that for me explained it answered some question as oppose to IT’S A PVP SERVER.

Just my input, I explained it to a few people and answered their q’s and I still see them around. Of course a nice sign would definitely help but when you haven’t played a true pvp server you don’t realize until your neck deep in pking whats goin on.

btw i vote for a neutral shard in dark forest also

[trent]

i only have a problem with the bind pont no pvp thing . if i catch someone going to town on the job guys or the temple i'll attack . thats just crap if i have to let them finish killing my faction job bosses and leave before i can defend my faction . that rule is just to easy to exploit . (example : someone runs into ns city looking to kill some gaurds so they just run into the inn of the half eaten goat and start raping the few gaurds in there without fear of getting into a pvp fight with a defending char cause of the shard) . Everything else term said i agree with . i try to take a defending stance with all my chars and if you get into a pvp fight with me 90% of the time its cause i caught you attacking my city. From what i have seen only a rare few people ever rp their faction and most of them end up just giving up. Lastnight here i am with my lvl 19 sorc trying to take on 3 invaders all epic lvls and I see Darth Sidius and think yay an epic lvl faction member that can help me ... but no sadly he just wanted to stand there and disspell me so i had no chance with the invaders ..... he did it over and over not just once . its that kinda play that drives good people away from this mod.

[Insane1974]

anyone know what causes game errors sometimes at least 2 times a day if im fighting anyone player creature etc i get game error some will whine that is battle logging some understand should we take screen shots everytime hmm now about killing other players sure you can its pvp but do you have to do it everytime you see them or what if a player is protecting there faction and kill you does that give you the right to get all you buddies and hunt them down day in day out i dont think so but most of what term has posted has made since