Killing your playerbase - story of a permadeath community
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- čas přidán 2. 09. 2021
- The Eminence Project Documentary, featuring permadeath, using the NWN:EE Engine, going over what I thought about the project - feel free to opine yourself if you played there. And stay tuned, something may be coming soon…
Haze explanatory documentary: • True story: Permadeath...
Haze documentary: • The Haze Chronicles Fu...
Eminence movie:
#1: • Unscripted Roleplay #1...
#2: • Unscripted D&D movie #...
#3: • Unscripted D&D movie -...
#Permadeath
#PermadeathDesign
#PermadeathRP
#NWNRP
#NWN:EERP
#HardcoreRP
#DNDRP
#DNDpermadeath
#DnDGameDesign
#DnDServer
#EMINENCERP
#EminenceRolePlay - Hry
![True story: Permadeath hardcore RP server [NWN1 PW Haze]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/iTEMfsAvqOc/mqdefault.jpg)
Good video, as someone who also played there I can agree with most of what you said, though a few nitpicks...
A nwn server in 2021 doesn't just have WoW and Assassin's Creed and BG3 to compete with - it also, most of all, have other nwn servers. These servers are built by people with 20 years of experience now, people that have seen dozens of servers rise and fall, that have iterated and improved. The community has gotten a lot better at making servers. The standards in 2021 are a lot higher then the standards in 2021. Eminence did not seem to realize this, and seemed to stubbornly try to re-create Haze without taking these 19 years of lessons in mind.
I find it somewhat telling that the example you give of how permadeath matters is... not actually something that came about because of "true permadeath", but rather an execution by NPC guards - Something that happens even on the most casual of servers at least occasionally. This death was interesting because it was -meaningful-, but 99% of deaths in Eminence where not. You died because you crossed a random wasp, because you accidently attacked an elk, or because a goblin archer randomly rolled a 20/20. True permadeath requires that your content be carefully balanced so that these kinds of meaningless, random deaths aren't the overwhelming majority, and the Eminence staff was both uncaring about, and incompetent at balance.
I also understand that maybe you don't want to burn any bridges, but I feel like it's not also a full retrospective without mentioning probably THE biggest reason players quit after meaningless permadeaths - Certain ranking staff members where absolutely toxic as hell, rude and dismissive to their playerbase. While staff members do deserve appreciation for their work, there is a limit and you can't have a server without players. In the end, as the saying goes in PnP, a lot of players just decided that "No D&D is better then bad D&D".
1) Agree about other servers becoming better, but Eminence didn't try to recreate Haze really (hamlet-building with racial isolation), if anything it tried to recreate Penitence (a 2005 PW that came after Haze, HOT's brainchild, slave colony...). But yea, I definitely thought it was antiquated and not up to 2021 standards.
2) Re;permadeath - yea most deaths were indeed meaningless, it's a bad way to die and very unsatisfying. You definitely wanna have a good meaningful death. Eminence had a lot of meaningless deaths due to its awful lack of balance, no argue there.
3) Well, I never experienced the toxicity myself so I didn't really have anything to say on that, I did hear the project lead was being rude to players, never took it for a major reason I figured if the experience was really good they would've kept playing, but yea glad to hear more opinions.
As someone who played the amazing but buggy first 2 weeks of beta before the vault-wipe... my experience as a rogue character with STR 8 and CON 8... and completely beefted Social Skills... I was able to hit 34 "Persuande" rolls during DM events to de-escalate potentially violent encounters with bandit-NPC's to achive event goals without resorting to a fight. I was able to use high charaisma/Appraise skill (boosted with Feats) to earn huge returns on mundane items which I then used that wealth to bribe other PC's or just hire them as personal 'muscle' for my character who was rapidly paving the way to becoming a non-combat crime boss.
After the server vault wipe ... the events, and playerbase during the times I was available, and the style of play changed. I never had the satisfaction or 'fun' in Eminence as much as I did those 2 weeks before the vault wipe and just drifted away and left the community. I will say though those first two weeks before the vault wipe were beyond compare... even with all the bugs in the server and the huge town design. Those first two weeks were every bit as good or better an experience as any I've ever had in 20+ years of NWN. After the Vault wipe... I found it barely worth a "Meh" and that's why I left. --That was my own expeience.
I think this video captures what I experienced very well. If there were more Larpuska's in the playerbase, I would have stayed longer ;)
A good video Larpushka!
Love your channel and LOVE Neverwinter Nights. I also love RP. I'd be interested in doing a permadeath server, but right now, I am very happy on Arelith, by far the best RP I have ever had.
Great video!
I'm sorry to hear about Eminence shutdown. I look forward to the next permadeath rp server,ty for this video.
Great video and I share the same concerns on many aspects. On the topic of permadeath, there's only so many characters people will go through before they too are done...causing server player numbers to diminish over time until finally the numbers simply crash because no one sees anyone else on and so they don't log in themselves.
Awesome video as always -Kaed Job system was my idea child, wasn't implemented as well as I thought - at staff meetings they were trying to get ideas for something for people to keep themselves occupied with outside of crafting.
Eminence Characters were just slangword for DM favorite children, tbh, or working on staff and im not a DM but still in on all the staff shit.
I know the whole deep lore of the colony too, It was a lackluster affair through and through from what I saw, I liked some of the guys I worked with but honestly they had a ton of problems.
13:15 - Wait, was that Dory on Arelith? - Didnt I use to know her as Dredi Harren many, many years ago?
OMG yes!!! Lol i didnt think anyone would recognize!! 2005 lol. Wow. Im shocked. Thank you! =D my memory fails me, was Dredi Harren a Light-Keeper ? I recall having a lot of interaction with a particular spellcaster character
@@Larpushka yes! Ilmatari cleric and bishop of light keep (or much better named Benwick keep) under lady Lexius Blackmore, a tyrran cleric. If I recall correctly Dory was a tormite pally?
Goodness, that
@@gentlemanned5757 Lathander Pally, but close enough =D wow haha good times, great clan, "Light-Keep" was a terrific name indeed! You're probably then the character I have in mind, character always with a robe, right? beardless headset. From Britain, right? I originally had in mind Finland, but now I think Britain because I recall being explained what does "chav" mean by you haha. Well, maybe it was you, I might be mixing-- feels like forever ago lol! =) Yea, I definitely remember there was a "high priestess" that had the same headset as Dory, the name "Lexius" certainly checks out in my mind. Oh man... what a walk down memory lane , made my day! =D
Ask yourself why a new tool as comprehensive as the Aurora Toolset has not been recently released? The answer is, sadly, obvious. Money.
The concept is too revolutionary, it takes the power from the developers and gives it to the players. Then it allows players to freely share their creations.
Somebody PLEASE just take this engine and put it in a true 3D environment with physics.
I have been playing since black box, I was on the NWN2 closed beta, that disappointment was why I switched to WOW. Long time ago, smh.
Interesting project and too bad I didn't get to try Eminence before Sunset
I still play on Ravenloft prisoners of the mists. Best server ever👌🏻🌹
It failed because permadeath sucks
i hopp u get permadeath'd