The situation in the Underdark, especially regarding Drow

[Solaghar]

One topic of obvious importance to me is the growing unsustainability of the Underdark as a place for older characters to continue to live and function and for newer players to prosper. There are numerous things that have become more and more problematic as time goes on, while others are old problems that when added to newer ones, become bigger problems. Many, many of these problems could be fixed with simple changes to the area files that would take no more than five minutes such as the problem with the Illithid area and the numerous quests that no longer function in Menzoberranzan and the areas surrounding it. I will mention here a few of the problems which I believe are of significant interest to anyone who ever desires to play a Drow or other character in the Underdark such as those whose hometown is Skullport. For those who might think that I am complaining, I would refer you to the builder's forum and I shall also try to provide possible solutions to some of these problems I mention.

There is no opportunty for favor for high level characters outside of endlessly killing the same (single) mob hundreds of times for Lloth worshippers, which makes it difficult for Priest(ess) characters and is detrimental to those characters who take their faith seriously. Priestesses are integral to the Drow RP experience. Having experienced a short time on the surface, I know that Lloth worshippers neither gain favor for killing Elves, nor Drow beneath the surface. Not having access to the deity file I have no idea what we do gain favor for apart from sacrificing something of an equal or higher level than yourself like all evil deities I'm aware of, but possibly this could be looked at? To say Lloth gives no favor for the killing of rival Drow or Elves or followers of Corellon doesn't make sense to me.

There is no rogue guild despite that path being available now to Drow. I would not envy a player who spends the kismet for a Drow and a Rogue to try to make his life in the Underdark. He would be literally without options, a waste of a great deal of kismet.

Areas that could easily be connected to the Underdark that would greatly improve RP such as Mithril Hall or the Underdark caverns beneath Alaron or even the sewers of a city like Zhentil Keep or Westgate could provide new places for Drow to explore and for others to interact with them, and it would be simple to provide basic stone corridors to allow access to these places, while a few exit programs would ensure that Drow couldn't leave the areas. Things like this would add so much to the place and take so little effort, and I'm sure the players would love to help in any way they could, whatever it takes.

The only interaction with surfacers takes place in Skullport, which only the strongest of the Drow can make their way to, to meet their ridiculously stronger surface-counterparts once in a blue moon, surfacers who have made it to the very bottom of Undermountain, who are relatively rare and as the most experienced players in the game, often know a lot of the limitations Drow players face and are never remotely threatened by them as characters, and by their very definition of being in the Undermountain are part of a large party. If I had known that it would be literally hundreds of hours of playing time before I'd come remotely close to being able to get to a place where once a month I might meet someone to RP with, I'm not sure I would have had the stamina for my character.

The same holds true in Skullport, which has no support for newbies aside from the newbie area beneath the city, and the only way up to the surface is to pay a fee of 20 platinum, an absurd fee for a newbie to pay with no support, or to rely on some kind soul from the Underdark to be really generous and help someone out of the kindness of their heart, the justification for which is generally fairly ridiculous for me and other Drow characters who gain nothing from giving away our money to help someone out of an area whom we will most likely never see again, where they'd be otherwise lost forever, aside from sympathy based on OOC considerations.

Many quests in the Underdark no longer function properly. Without naming quests or giving away information, almost all of these problems could be fixed in five minutes, dabbling with resets, changing a language on an item, fixing a flag on a mob. When someone begins one of our few quests available and are struck with bugs and insurmountable problems, it is extremely disheartening.

While none of these problems spell the end of the world, it makes the Underdark a significantly less attractive place to be and I am unaware of any Drow characters who have been created in recent memory who continue to play over the long term, despite all of the improvements to the character creation system. I have seen a few new Drow lately and I feel bad that they've even created characters not knowing about the way things are down here now. I am honestly of the opinion that until a lot of these issues are resolved, the Underdark should be closed to new characters, or at least given a *very* stern warning that clearly spells out the lack of consistant RP and character development ability compared to the surface. Anyone who saves up the charisma to play a Drow is obviously a dedicated FK player and they deserve at least that much support in my opinion.

Anyone who knows me and my Drow character, either IC or OOC knows how much I love the Drow and the RP, but to allow people to create characters down here who they will abandon quickly out of boredom and frustration only makes the area worse, not better, because they are that much less likely to ever try it again.

I do know that Sharni is on hiatus and that building and decision making are at something of an impasse in regards to new projects being added to the game, but perhaps Dalvyn or some other admin who is sufficiently trusted to add new areas could request that a new builder's team be constituted that could check over and add new areas to the game at least until Sharni gets back. I'd love to be constructive about this, to offer up new suggestions for ways to improve the area, and I can only assume that since new players are still allowed here that this is still an important and desireable area for the game to have. I honestly think if some of these issues can't be resolved, as someone who has spent by far the vast majority of his time on this game dealing with these problems firsthand, then it ought to be closed until they can be and those Drow who wish to apply for it and possibly pay a kismet cost or something of the like, be allowed out onto the surface to play like normal characters. There is a no-Drizzts rule as has been discussed previously, which was the main argument against us there in the first place. My own Drow recently spent months on the surface and nothing detrimental came from it that I'm aware of except an increase in bar RP in Zhentil Keep. These are, in my opinion, important things that should be discussed between the admins and the players who have a vested interest in the Drow, hopefully in an IRC forum where others with good heads on their shoulders can also give their opinion.

[Balek]

I would love to see some changes to the underdark and its connections to the surface. I know that Mithril Hall already has an Underdark area connected to it, but that is not connected to the rest of the drow accessible Underdark. Connecting the rest of the Underdark to Mithril Hall could result in a lot more drow against dwarf roleplay.

Another possibility for Underdark connections to the surface could be a drow surface outpost. I'm not as knowledgable as some about Forgotten Realms, but I think there are drow surface outposts somewhere in the southern part of the continent, probably other places as well. A long walk to the outpost, a quest for the drow that live there, and a kismet check would probably be more than sufficient to keep poorly played drow from running all over the surface.

Even with those measures taken, I think another step could be taken to improve drow roleplay. Perhaps we could consider adding a dwarven controlled entrance to the Underdark somewhere in the game and allowing surface characters to enter the Underdark. Granted, they would need some kind of motivation to go down there, but if a few quest/leveling areas were added, it could be a sufficient draw for people to head underground.

[Jerigo]

This comes from someone with no knowledge of Forgotten Realms outside of FK and who has never had any real interaction with any drow characters or the Underdark, so I don't have a whole lot to back up the opinion that I'm about to give. But I think that FK would be better served by not creating more opportunities for surface dwellers to explore the underground. Rather, I think that any time spent improving the Underdark situation should be focused on bolstering that whole underground environment without allowing more surface dwellers to enter it.

As I said, I have no personal experience from any of this, but my opinion is just that I am afraid that if more opportunities to cross from surface to underground were implemented before the environment down there has had the improvements it needs, then we run the risk of turning the underground areas into another stomping ground for surface dwellers.

I'm not sure if I've expressed that clearly, does it make sense to anyone else? And what's the definition of a run-on sentence again?

[Duranamir]

Speaking as another long term player of Drow characters i generally agree with the points that Solaghar has made in this and the general forum.

I also take on board the points that Dalvyn has made about the relative prioritys and benefits of doing work on Drow specific coding when Drow are a minor (if vocal ) part of the playerbase.

I would also agree that if the ways to the surface where opened then many people would create drow with the intention of going to the surface, which is not a good reflection of the forgotten realms reality as portrayed by the many books.

However i think that there is a place for a closer linkage between the underdark and the surface to create interesting situations for good RP between two interesting and different cultures. My one contact with a non Drow in skullport made for a very good RP experience (i feel for both of us) and opened up an ongoing RP oppurtunity.

My personal favorite would be a difficult (requiring at least level 30 +) route that would allow drow characters to get to one of the sewers below the surface citys. I think that Westgate is the best candiate because it already has a fairly well developed sewer system which is visited fairly often by surface players. Also it would not be out of place for Drow to be there to trade with one or more of the surface traders, influence agents and generally interfere in the politics of the overground. I think this kind of interaction where the Drow are trying to advance there aims indirectly through other evil characters (playing spider in the web) is a good reflection of how Drow should be acting. Drow actually appearing on the surface should be incredibly rare and only ever in support of a major plot. Drow war partys should be feared and would only attack well defined targets not randomly wander round slaying stuff.

I also think that one way of stopping Drow running around on the surface is to severley limit the availability of 'Daylight adaptation' this should be incredibly rare. This would limit Drow to travelling only at night if at all. A Drow caught during dayligh should be in serious trouble.

So in summary i would favour a small targeted piece of work to allow Drow to interact with other PC's in a limited way by allowing High level Drow to get to the sewers of Westgate. Allowing them to leave Westgate and go any further is another issue, this is where the problems might really develop.

Expanding the underdark itself and fixing the bugs within it is a seperate piece of work that would aid in building up a viable underdark playerbase, this however would require much more work and is i feel a more longterm project. The addition of other underdark races would aid this greatly.

I would be certainly willing to help implement these changes in any way that i could.

Duranamir

[Lathander]

When reading text it is sometimes difficult to discern tone. Please read my comments with a business-like attitute, not in condemnation.

1. If you would like to see any specific area expanded, one of the best ways is to ask for approval to build that area yourself. Then, upon receiving approval, get to work.

2. If the Drow areas (or any other areas) are to be populated with active PCs, FK must have more players. Good players. Or at least players who TRY to play within the rules and improve the rp and overall fun of the game. Those players need to be enticed or invited to play here. Until the base increases the opportunity for rp will be extremely limited.

[Solaghar]

When reading text it is sometimes difficult to discern tone. Please read my comments with a business-like attitute, not in condemnation.

1. If you would like to see any specific area expanded, one of the best ways is to ask for approval to build that area yourself. Then, upon receiving approval, get to work.

I completely understand your attempt to be constructive in your criticism. As I stated in my post however, I have already undertaken numerous building projects, many of which are simply awaiting revision by Mystra and Tyr as their next steps in the review process. One is a levelling and equipment area that would exist beneath Skullport and address a lot of the problems there. The other is a second part to a Drow city that would expand our options for guilds and the like. I have also put my foot in the door for many other places in the Underdark such as the Duergar city Gracklstugh and Deep Imaskar, two prospective hometowns for the Duergar and Imaskari races. One look at the last post in the builder's TODO forum shows that there has not been a post there in four months, since early August. I am unaware of what I as a player, builder or whatever else I can be could do to work harder on building, if there is something I am missing I would be more than willing to take it up.

Despite that, there seems to be a very serious philosophy entertained by Dalvyn which is probably correct that more Underdark areas serving a very small number of players cut off from the rest of the game simply isn't a good use of resources and there is no reason the administration itself should concentrate on getting stuff built there.

I really do try to be as constructive as possible in terms of making these suggestions, and I'm obviously just one player among many, I enjoy the prospect of playing here for a long time into the future with the characters I've come to love. I hate seeing a poorly RPed Drow more than almost anyone and I always try to show them the light, but apart from that there is very little that either we or players or you as admins can do to make people better RPers except by providing better examples, encouraging new players to stick around and providing fun things for older players to do so they don't succumb to boredom.

[Kirkus]

I love the idea of the underdark. I do have problems with it not connecting with the surface. But I understand the imms reasons. our player base is not ready for that. We are too imature. We can't even run arround the surface with out breaking rules and finding loopholes to extort. The underdark is I think and, don't quote me on this, bigger than the surface. I havn't read the source book, which I have, cover to cover so my info is shady. But what I have picked up is that there are three levels to the underdark, tuns of cities and extra races that live in the underdark.

But we can't handle the addition. I would love to have the surface connect to upperdark but we all know we would end up with 20 Dritzz wanna be's running arround. I would love to be able to have drow raiding parties and other cool things that connect the surface with the underdark..... but we can't handle it.

Another thing, we don't have enough players. Yeah we are growing which is awsome but we don't even have enough players playing evils to balance the goods on the surface. That is why the evil lands arn't growing so fast. The need isn't there.

So here is what I would suggest. Build it your self. Buy the source book and start building. You can add all the quests and new areas that you want. You can make an underdark that is as awe inspiring as it should be. But don't complain unless you are going to fix the problem.

Oh and sorry if I hurt feelings, step on toes, or insult anyone..... not intentional.. All criticisem was ment to be constructive and non insulting.

[Lathander]

Solaghar Wrote:

I have already undertaken numerous building projects, many of which are simply awaiting revision by Mystra and Tyr as their next steps in the review process.

My statement was not directed at any individual. My intent, and thank you for recognizing its constructive nature, is more intented as a blanket statement for everyone. I know that you have put your money where your mouth is and have several areas ready for review. Your comments in this thread, along with those of others, has resulted in an imm discussion (lead by the primary building/coding imms) to review and revise the area submission system to make it easier for builders to get their areas into the game.

[Jzexleth]

I've been following this thread with interest. I'm a drow player from way back, just returned to FK from a two year absence. Playing a drow was always a little bit bittersweet for me. I've read 6 or 8 novels set in Menzo, and so I know the setting and the character-type pretty thoroughly, but opportunities for extensive roleplay were always few and far between.

My personal belief is that the heart of the problem is not lack of areas, or a lack of players. It's all the little things that are broken; The quests that don't work, the basic and necessary equipment that you can't buy in stores, the lack of a guild for rogues. I'm sure many players have started a drow, but quickly quit in frustration when they've run into one of these roadblocks.

If it were even half as easy to get started with a drow character as it is a surface character, there would be a lot more people with drow alts. And if the 5 or 6 auction characters that live in Menzo were given to players that actually logged 5 or 10 hours playing them in a given month, we'd have an active and vibrant community down there. And once you've got player activity, player interest in building will follow.

I'd be more than willing to join an area review team for the Menzo/drow underdark area. I really believe that a few simple fixes could make the area much more playable in very short order.

[Balek]

I think that one of the most appealing things about playing a drow is the opportunity to participate in the backstabbing and political manipulations that go along with drow society. The system as it is right now doesn't allow for many of these opportunities to be developed fully. My proposal is a more or less total reboot for the system.

1. Permanent Death. It sounds harsh, but consider that the risk of death is a great motivator in drow society. Additionally, permanent death ensures that if you bump off the only witness to your crime, you go unpunished. As it stands, if you kill someone they end up resurrected and then they run off to tell their Matron Mother, who will probably beat you mercilessly or kill you. This should only happen if your drow is foolish enough to let a witness get away.

2. Flexible Housing. This would require doing away with a little bit of the 'true to the books' feel of Menzoberranzan. Essentially what this means is that we would still have four houses at all times, but houses can be destroyed and houses can move up and down in ranking. If you destroy a house, that house ceases to exist, all houses below it move up a spot, and a new house comes into existance at the bottom. We'd need a list of various drow house names, or we could allow the Matron to name the new house. Players of the four Matrons would always be the players of the matrons, but they'd have to change characters as houses are destroyed/created. Any drow who were members of the destroyed house who were not killed can either live life as commoners or attempt to join another house.

3. Flexible Positions. Lots of titles, like weaponmaster, house mage, firstboy, secondboy...these can be handed out by the Matron Mother. Higher titles like masters of the academies can be handed out by various matrons. Maybe the archmage and and other academy leaders are always chosen by the matron of the first house, giving incentive to get your house up to #1.


I really think that this system could do wonders for the atmosphere among the drow. There's real fear when you know that getting killed is really it. There's a real threat when you know that getting caught over the body of an enemy could mean that the rest of Menzo bands together and destroys your house, leaving you a commoner. There's also the possibility for stealthy kills in the shadows, for going out on patrol with that priestess you don't like much and letting a hook horror have her.

[Kirkus]

I think perminant death is something that can be worked with. I know at one time the abyss was supposed to be looked at for expansion. Once again I run back to the reference books.... and there I find a vast area to be explored by the dead. Flexable housing and positions dosn't sit well with me. That from my understanding is one of the biggest things. How about more quests to give more stuff to do? I really don't know what we already have.

[Solaghar]

Your comments in this thread, along with those of others, has resulted in an imm discussion (lead by the primary building/coding imms) to review and revise the area submission system to make it easier for builders to get their areas into the game.

If nothing else happens with any of this, this alone is a fantastic development. Another thing I might suggest along the lines of providing very extensive outlines on what is appropriate for areas is including a list of all skills and feats and spells and assigning each one a relative point scale. A spell like magic missile which is widely available and easily trained would be given a point value of perhaps one. Something like fifth attack is difficult to get but not too strange and doesn't really require a quest, that might entail say, three points. A spell that is very powerful and difficult to find, or a skill that is given outside of one's class perhaps, might be given a point value of say, five or more. Set a point value for each area not to exceed a certain number, say a 100 area city might have 30 points available for training, a 50 room levelling area only 5. Something like this with a clearly spelled out list of building requirements and the like would help contribute to areas that need a heck of a lot less revision. Showing what sorts of equipment, what sorts of magical applies, if any are appropriate, and appropriate quest rewards would reduce so much of the revision team's work and save builders time as well.

Another good thing about making building and revision easier is that it requires less admin resources to deal with and most likely would result in more building projects being undertaken and brought into the game faster. This would help lessen the admin need to concentrate on building certain areas up and including things for them, if players can get them done themselves, as I'm sure many are willing to do.

As for Jzexleth's comments, I'm glad he's back and we've been RPing in Menzo, trying to establish once again a core group of Drow who can bring RP to Menzo. Which brings me to Balek's post...

Balek sums up a lot of the inherent problems with being a Drow and RPing properly in Menzo. Making an enemy down there, especially one more powerful or higher ranking than you, can make your life miserable sure, but there's a big limit to what they can do. Matrons aren't around enough to supervise long-term punishments or to spur long-term RP. That is left to the characters, and I think that is the best way really unless the Matrons plan to be as active as a character.

Permanent death is attractive in terms of one Drow PKilling another, perhaps a special command could be instituted to do it, and there should still be a way around it, as the Drow in the books do on occasion contact the dead, though they do not resurrect them or raise the dead so much as animate the corpses, if someone is so weak as to be killed, they would not be raised. But on the other hand, this could result in a few Drow deciding to simply eliminate everyone. Also it would probably make it really tough for people who put a ton of effort into their character to deal with having hundreds of hours and RL months or years of RP cut off at once. So there are positives and negatives on both sides of that... perhaps something could be dealt with inbetween, like a sort of RPed mindlessness after death where a person can't really remember much of what happened to them before they died and dying would result in the loss of one's position within the house.

Flexible housing is a great idea, I mentioned something similar to this a long time ago, basically maintaining the same four houses for simplicity's sake, but to allow them to move up or down in standing in relation to one another, based on a few things like say, a house treasury, the power of the house's highest PC priestess, the power of the house's highest PC Mage, and highest PC warrior, something along those lines, and it'd also have to take into account activity, people who haven't logged on in a month, let alone a year, shouldn't be counted to ensure that this is something that remains active.

There should also be a major incentive for any house to gain the top spot, though I can't immediately think of what that might be, there should be some concrete aspect of it that really makes it important for people to gain this. This would also entail flexible house positions as well, as he said. This also needs to be fixed so that people recognize that the positions are for the benefit of the game, not their personal aggrandizement. If someone works really hard to become weaponsmaster of their house and then they go inactive for six months, they shouldn't be surprised to find they're not weaponsmaster anymore, and they haven't been for a long time. I'd say the same thing about some auction characters, people tend to, and this is in some cases, definetely not all, see them as more of a feather in their cap that they own and control, rather than just being respected and trusted enough to take control of a major NPC for the RP purposes of *others* in the game. In terms of the Underdark, I will say specifically that Jarlaxle is a very important character, Bregan D'aerthe was designed in the mind as a fully viable competitor to the other houses, and the only option for commoners to be a part of something larger down there, but with him gone, it's impossible for commoners to join Bregan and hence, they lose out on a big part of what makes being a commoner interesting, the chance to join. I'm not saying Jarlaxle's player whoever that is has to log the character on every day, but it's been nearly a year since he's been on and it follows to reason that if a major guild in the Underdark is expected to continue to function, it must have the means available to do so, whether that is making a way other than Jarlaxle personally initiating someone into Bregan, or giving the character to someone else. And this is just an example, but it's one I'm personally familiar with. I honestly don't know whether he plays his or her regular character here at all anymore, or if they've just given up on the Underdark.

[Duranamir]

Baleks idea of permanent death seems a little harsh and i agree with solaghar that it could lead to 1 or a few Drow permanently killing of all the other PC's, not something that would really help with the RP scene.

My view is that the the repercussions of dying to another Drow should best be handled in character, no Drow worth his salt is going to want to admit that another Drow defeated him and to show such weakness in front of a Matron Mother is asking for trouble. The very least that would happen is the immediate loss of House rank or even banishment out of the hous a fate worse than death for most noble Drow. The shame of being defeated is something to be concealed, and the pride of succesfully executing another Drow is to be quietly enjoyed, not bragged about to all and sundry, or the Matron Mothers may have to take some action. The quiet satisfaction as the one defeated is forced to acknowledge your superiority is a feeling much to be enjoyed as a Drow.

On a practical note just takeing another Drows insignia is going to cause them immense difficultys as they will either have to beg their Matron Mother for a new one (if they can find her and take the risk of her temper ) or find who ever killed them and either beg them for it, therfore acknowledging there superiority or defeat them to regain it. A noble without an insignia can not even enter there house and is in a very dodgy position in the hierarchy indeed (from personal experience this made for a very intersting period of RP )


Duranamir

[Kirkus]

I would first like to say that I am an idiot. I generally don't comment on things unless I have FULLY read the previous posts. But lately with school and work....(yeah I am now a bus driver for the university, how cool is that!) I havn't had the time. I still log into the boards daily but generally I only get to skim the articles.

In an earlier post I rejected a suggestion out of hand. The one about flexable houses. I read so little that I failed to realize that this is in my opinion closer to what the books have in mind. No one house is always going to be the strongest. Every event will affect every house different. I think the imms should monitor this closely, but I do believe that house strength should be more fluid.

[Jzexleth]

I think this is all very good stuff.

On the specific example of 'flexible houses' (which really ought to be called 'flexible house rankings'), I like the idea a lot. Some thoughts:

The rank of any house in Menzoberranzan is more or less equal to its favor in the eyes of Lloth. Something that could be done is to rerank the houses once per real life month or so based on the total 'favor' accumulated by all PCs in that house who logged their character at least once in that given period.

Now I don't know if that is feasible given the code. And it doesn't address the issue that it's pretty much impossible to accrue divine favor in Menzo. Plus Lloth would have to be actively played (and isn't as far as I know...)

As far as the perma-death thing... I was under the impression that in any PC death, the player is supposed to play it as if the details of the death were fuzzy. Sure, if there was a living witness, they could tell you all about it. But if you die all by yourself, the correct response upon reincarnation should be 'Duh, what happened?'. I think the game is purposefully coded to clear the message buffer when you die so that you can't go back and see how close you were to killing that dragon (or whatever). I could be wrong on both these counts, but that's what two year old memories are telling me.

Though I was (and for the most part, remain) a novice builder, I did attempt to build several areas for drow PC. One was on the testport when I left, I believe Solaghar might have completed it. The other is a 200 room area that was built offline but is mostly complete. If it appears that significant progress is being made toward making the drow a more viable/enjoyable playing choice, I would be thrilled to finish it and get it into the game.