Grinding on the server ....

A nice PLAYER recently wrote to me and had some questions about 'grinding' here on ArgentumRegio.

This (anonymously, and in part) is what follows with my commentary - placed here to help illuminate where we stand on the practice:



Friend x,
Thank you for your inquery. We try to respond in a timely fashion to all messages here.

aFriend wrote:In your views what do you find Grinding as?

Grinding is when a PC takes advantage (prounounced EXPLOITS) the game mechanic of monster respawns for the purpose of gaining experience points and levels in a rapid fashion.

aFriend wrote:The reason I ask this is because I was caught breaking a rule (Didn't know, so sorry in advance). This made me think, why is the server against grinding? A fellow player told be because of power builders who make over - the - top builds that are annoying to others, but that's not what grinding really is all about, just a really bad portion about it for power hungry people.

It is against the rules because this is a ROLE PLAYING server, not an action server. This is not a race to level 40. There are 1337+ areas here, this should take some time to explore and as some areas are geared to lower levels, a rush to level 40 would just make so many areas totally uninteresting and non-challenging that is it frowned upon here. Intended level gain here is about lv 20 after six months play, level 40 after about a year, allowing for some variation based on time committed and quests run.

Powergamers have vastly different goals than the Role Playing audience we target. These can spoil the fun for Role Players -
turning a vast and interesting world into just one big pvp slugfest (dull dull dull - there are lots of action servers for this). We try to provide stories, mysteries and things worth exploring to occupy - much of which is immersive and requires suspension of disbelief of the audience. It can be jarringly off to meet another PC at level 1 in a tavern, and literally the next week return to find that PC is now a lv 40 - so we target a reasonably believable rate of progression that lends itself to Role Play and exploration.

This is not to say there is nowhere in the module to find a glorious long lasting slugfest, just that most encounters are not created here to be continuous. You _should_ find that most monsters have lairs. You _should_ find that there are usually more monsters in the lair (and sometimes treasures too). You _should_ find these to be reasonably believable settings because there is not an 'infinite' number of goblins in the lair. The goal was to make most lairs that a PC or PARTY could clear of monsters.

SOME areas are not like that, for example, the troll lairs are a total grindfest by comparison to most of our lairs. There are LOTS of trolls there, and more, these are D&D style trolls where, in combat, you might cut or bash bits off of them, and those bits will regenerate into whole trolls too. You ONLY get XP for a troll if you destroy it utterly . . . but note, in that frenzy of troll-fighting, little bits sometimes get flung wide of the melee... and after the PCs leave the troll lair, these little bits regen and restock the lair in a fairly short amount of time.

Some lairs, such as the gobbies or lizardman lairs are setup where they are constantly receiving immigrants so their numbers will restock the emptied lair in a reasonable period of time. Sewers are full of rats and if you linger near certain places long enough you'll find them practically pouring out of the sewer pipes. Most monsters you encounter out of their lair, are from nearby lairs (seek them if you can).

What we seek to avoid is the 'inexplicable infinite spawns' that are the usual fare of a grindfest server. The server has 1337+ areas, and we would like you to see a goodly portion of them rather than gain all your XP in five or ten areas. There are many secrets to discover, and some areas are quite difficult to find/access... so exploration and some mystery solving are almost essential here.

The sort of grinding we frown upon is when you find some 'continuous spawn' that was placed/configured in error and flail a couple levels out of it, never telling the staff that you may have found something not working right. Look at each encounter with a slightly critical eye (as we are in beta test here, there may be errors still in the mix) - if you find some encounter that seems perpetual and has no reasonable explanation for the monsters source... please mention it. If it is broken we want to fix it, if not, we'll thank you and move on.

aFriend wrote:
I just say this because most of my friends that are coming in (Or installing it soon to come in) come from a server where we would grind to level up and PVP for fun, RP for fun, or just try to have our best fun being maxed level with crappy gear. xxx / xxx / xxx.

NOTE THAT THIS IS NOT A FORCED RP server, but a RP-ENCOURAGED server. We DO require RP at least when a DM is running an event (because DMs frown on having ooc chatter spoil an event), other than that, we encourage PLAYERS of similar styles to PARTY up and game together. This server is HUGE 1337+ areas means there is room here for most everyone regardless of RP style. Note RP does earn XP here, so not RPing at all will slow your PC's progress a bit, but not stop it utterly.

I hope you and your friends will find the server to your liking. As noted there are MANY places with many monsters, finding them is half the fun. If you find something that just does not seem reasonably working well, please tell us asap. The in game bug report tool works well for this (recording location and other data to the log files). If you and your friends explore, you will find this server to be vast, and well planned. If you look for clues you will find great mysteries unfolding before you, with no small amount of knuckle-dusting along the way.

I hope this helps clear up the confusion. Please keep the feedback channel open and tell us what you find here, good, bad or indifferent, feedback is gold here.

Be well. Game on.
GM_ODA