A long and frustrating night.

First off! Hello. Nice to meet all of you!


Okay so.

Last night I purchased NWN:EE On steam, I was excited after all these years to be giving this game another shot. In my 30's and have been playing D&D and such for a long time But for some reason when I owned NWN back in the day I never really gave it a real chance. So I bought it, googled around for a PW to play in and found this server.


First thing I did was peruse the forums and saw that you guys are looking for more players. So I figured what the hell I'll give it a shot. I like what I saw and read about how the server works so I was excited to get started.....And then my night started.


1st thing. Upon visiting the website I couldn't find a FORUM button. I didn't know I needed to click Home and then scroll down because the first page that loads just has a couple current things posted. Its not really a big deal as it was pretty easy to figure out but a Forum button wouldn't be a bad idea. (Unless I'm just not seeing it)?

2nd Thing. IF you are not logged into the forum (which I wasn't at the time because my request hadn't been approved) I could not see the "Here and Here" links in the First time players look here Post. However both the CEP texts were highlighted as links and transported me to Walmart.com I don't even know why. Maybe throw in some information about that? Bold out some of the sections so its not an eyesore.

I then spent quite a while trolling around the internet looking for these versions of CEP and came across even later versions, but wouldn't know that they were okay to use because the "First time players look here" post doesn't even imply that I could use them, however a different post in the FAQ section does say this. I wouldn't even have bothered looking there because the links on this site weren't working in the first place.
I eventually got CEP downloaded (I thought) but ended up grabbing the wrong ZIP file of it and had to try again because the place I looked the 2nd link was broken on another site.
I found what I needed and followed directions from the internet and from a post I found on here.

Still didn't work. I got a "Client/server version differs" error in game.

After even more messing around with it I was able to stumble luckily onto a post that told me to just subscribe to the Workshop on steam for CEP. (THIS!!!!!) would have saved me a couple hours of frustrating downloading and unzipping and moving things between my documents folder and my steam folder to no avail! (Maybe update your FAQ/New player post with this information)? Most people game on steam these days. And maybe I'm spoiled since the days of playing Quake and such at Lan parties and setting all of that up manually. Everything is so easy and lazy nowadays. Even i will admit some of this happening is my own fault. but I was determined.


After all of this frustration I was finally able to get into the server. I made a character and maybe by then I was just over it? done with all the crap I had just gone through, the inability to find any information on the web for what I was looking for, how to set things up, etc.
Maybe i was just looking in the wrong places? Who knows.


Anyway, Character was made. I spawned in and possibly due to the night I was having I wasn't having it. I had a packed inventory and so many signs to read that It was all too much by this point. Then I got glitched out after selecting the first Spawn mode from the dwarf "Dramatic". I couldn't do anything I got like shoved into a piece of the ship underwater?
Anyway I persisted and after like 20 minutes it just teleported me and I ended up on a ship. wandered around a bit, went down a ladder into a room filled with water. Couldn't get back up the ladder no matter what I tried. after 10 minutes or so I gave up and rerolled and chose the Practical start.


I spoke to the guy in the hallway at Noob U, halfway through the conversation My game just got disconnected. I think it had been my connection but who knows.
reconnected, spoke to him again and headed out into the tutorial area. again I was met with so many items, things to read and stuff to do that Again maybe it was just me and my mood but after running around there for quite some time, not ever getting fishing to work no matter how hard I tried because it was "too far away". Becoming "Slowed" from touching a fern and trying my darndest to use a rope to climb down, only to be shot into the sky, fall and then die slowly. I rerolled.

Fast forward, skipped tutorial, ended up in town, ran around a bit and eventually logged off, uninstalled and contacted steam for a refund.


I excuse the long rant, but you guys really do seem like the type of community I am looking for. That my friends are looking for.
You all seem like great people, this server seems like a great place and for years I have looked back at NWN and thought about playing it because it just feels so.....DND to me..
But last night ruined my experience and I'm not saying at all that its not partly or even mostly my fault but even telling me that i had to be a member just to get the correct link to CEP. or a more updated and focused Installation guide and such would have drastically improved how my night was going.


I'm not sure if I'm going to re-buy the game. I refunded it out of anger and I was tired at the point. I would really like a place to call "Home" away from home. A place to adventure and meet new people. People like you guys!


You want new players?

Make it easier and more appealing for them to want to get into this. This world of NWN and PW servers that there is really truly not that much of a community for and thus the information on getting into everything is already limited.


Thank you all for your time reading my huge rant.

and thank you for welcoming me to your community (if I'm even welcome at this point now)

Yeah, the dramatic entrance has a neat little bug there. I'm pretty sure ODA and Eriniel know about it, but I know not of any actions taken towards fixing it.

Other than that, I as a fellow player, welcome you to the server
Hope to see you online sometime!

Hello There!

The nitty gritty of this server is that it has a TON of features that you won't find on any of the other modules. When the server made the switch to the EE edition, it wasn't a nice transition. The majority of the systems work great but there are some that were 100% bugged after the swap. You've seen them, I've seen them, Beamdog didn't make this easy. Just last week the server had an update to fix some issues, and there are definitely more to come!

As for the massive amounts of reading for most functionalities on the server, my advice is to hop on when there are players to interact with. They'll show you the basics, and important tricks that they've figured out. That's the both alluring and damning part of this module. There is tons of stuff to do and figure out, many of the things that you can do are discovered through experimentation, research, and intuition.

I absolutely believe that anyone on our server would love to show you around a bit. With a prod in the right direction, I'm sure you'll be hooked. Just as I was many many moons ago.

Hope to see you soon,

Joo3

I've told Oda we do need a Flashing Neon sign , pointing up front ... the server does have somewhat of a learning curve to it.

But, however ... WELCOME!
Yes, we are definitely always seeking new players! I myself am older , been around since well, at least first edition DnD, lol .

We've recently had somewhat an influx of new players, and NORMALLY , ODA would have met you and greeted you ( Our most excellent Game Master ), and showed you around. He might have been sleeping, or doing fixes , or real life stuff at the time.

I also tend to go in character and show around too when I can. Here lately on the server, I've been very busy engaged in immersive role-play , and with so many new players, even I get stretched thin on being in multiple places at once, lol.

I'm sorry you had a hard time getting in, and setting up. Generally thats a pain, made easier with workshop content on EE, but sometimes even that isn't quite enough.
Steam NWN:EE houses your files in MY Documents folder, under Neverwinter Nights category, an dyou can manually install haks, erf, .tlks downloaded from the Vault ( wwww.nwvault.org ) too.

From logging in, I have mentioned before to REMOVE the DRAMATIC entrance on FIRST TIME characters ... it's just problematic, an dthe NOOB-U stuff, gives a good amount of basic, very basic tools and skills one needs to do while in game. You CAN always access noob-U ( located in Mid Chonda district of the city) from the NW corner door on that map too, always. To refresh , take a breather, and go meet other players coming in the first time.
Noob-U also gives a few "free" levels to help get you going too, BTW.

From Noob-U, things can get daunting ... you are in the middle of a HUGE city. This server is very ... "Gygaxian" , and very large ( over 1000 areas to explore and do), so exploration is encouraged. But you can also , stumble into areas not designed for low level characters too. There's no limits to exploring though.
Here nighttime can be dangerous, even in the city ... like Pen and Paper DnD , my first time logging in, I was chased by random rolled encounter, into a sea hag on one of the ports, whom absolutely demolished me , hahaha. Time of year, moon phases , day time/night time, even being underground or weather can effect if there are encounters or not.

Most of us that have been around a bit, generally go out north of the city. We tend to use the portals a lot, because we know how to talk to them too lol.
Tivook INN is kind of the ... "defacto" place, Characters tend to meet a lot, even though that City has a LOT of content to explore and places to adventure ... you just have to find them.
I'm not sure why Tivook was the "spot" , besides it' s got the best in game thirst and wake up juice offered ... , but it is rather sandwiched between some areas that lead to adventure as well ... , anyways it's North of the city Dorahl ( about 4-5 screens north if following the road going north. ) It was the "spot' long before I cam here, even about 4 years back, it was the "defacto" place to meet and RP at.

This place can be ... frustrating at times, daunting even ... it's not always easy. It has a ton of secrets. Even secrets shoved into secrets ... literally, hahaha. Figuring them out/discovery is part of the fun ...

It is, in my opinion worth getting NWN again, and YES bring your friends! It's best enjoyed in the company of others, no doubt!

Welcome, I'm BD ... and PM me in game if you need to , need anything in my power I can do to help, or know. I don't know everything, and I can't do what DMs do , but from player side , I'll help best i can, and if it's something I don't know, Hel, Mialee, or Oda probably do know.
My Characters:
Main -Bavmorda , Secondary Fei Yan Shu ( my ninja gal!) ,
Alts- Sariah ... you don't want to meet her, she's bad for everyone.
If you are into playing Drow, I do have a drow priestess here.
Natasha , a barbarian woman ( modeled off Red Sonjia movie character)

I have others, but generally hadn't gotten around to playing them much.

Welcome to the server, again ... and YES bring your friends please!

I appreciate all the responses!
I managed to catch my Refund before it processed and cancelled it. I may just give it another shot!

However, my problem wasn't so much with the Server learning curve.
Its all the outdated and hard to find information on the site here to even get on the server.

I do feel that, if you guys want more players. Am easy to read, not hard to navigate and clear instruction on everything needed would prevent people from giving up before ever getting in.

Friend Brachra,

Welcome to the server. My apologies to you that you had difficulties getting logged-in.

Brachra wrote:
1st thing. Upon visiting the website I couldn't find a FORUM button. I didn't know I needed to click Home and then scroll down because the first page that loads just has a couple current things posted. Its not really a big deal as it was pretty easy to figure out but a Forum button wouldn't be a bad idea. (Unless I'm just not seeing it)?

I'm curious if you were on our web site or some other... here is an image of our web site (I underlined the two forum links shown 'above the fold' (e.g. top of the page).

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

Is this the web site you visited? If so, were the links not displaying the same way as shown here? I ask because I certainly want to make it easy to login to the server.

Brachra wrote:
2nd Thing. IF you are not logged into the forum (which I wasn't at the time because my request hadn't been approved) I could not see the "Here and Here" links in the First time players look here Post. However both the CEP texts were highlighted as links and transported me to Walmart.com I don't even know why. Maybe throw in some information about that? Bold out some of the sections so its not an eyesore.

AHHH, I see, yea links we don't allow to guests - that could be a sticking point. I'll type those out in full so casual non-forum members can copy paste to access those pages. THANK YOU for pointing this out, as a forum member, I don't see what you see and it is a great service you do me to bring this to my attention.

Brachra wrote:
I then spent quite a while trolling around the internet looking for these versions of CEP and came across even later versions, but wouldn't know that they were okay to use because the "First time players look here" post doesn't even imply that I could use them, however a different post in the FAQ section does say this. I wouldn't even have bothered looking there because the links on this site weren't working in the first place.
I eventually got CEP downloaded (I thought) but ended up grabbing the wrong ZIP file of it and had to try again because the place I looked the 2nd link was broken on another site.
I found what I needed and followed directions from the internet and from a post I found on here.

Still didn't work. I got a "Client/server version differs" error in game.

After even more messing around with it I was able to stumble luckily onto a post that told me to just subscribe to the Workshop on steam for CEP. (THIS!!!!!) would have saved me a couple hours of frustrating downloading and unzipping and moving things between my documents folder and my steam folder to no avail! (Maybe update your FAQ/New player post with this information)? Most people game on steam these days. And maybe I'm spoiled since the days of playing Quake and such at Lan parties and setting all of that up manually. Everything is so easy and lazy nowadays. Even i will admit some of this happening is my own fault. but I was determined.

Part of it is on our end too - so I'll fix what I can to make it better for the next user experience. I really appreciate fresh eyes on a thing and feedback from that experience. It helps a lot. I updated the 'read me first'.

Brachra wrote:
Anyway, Character was made. I spawned in and possibly due to the night I was having I wasn't having it. I had a packed inventory and so many signs to read that It was all too much by this point. Then I got glitched out after selecting the first Spawn mode from the dwarf "Dramatic". I couldn't do anything I got like shoved into a piece of the ship underwater?
Anyway I persisted and after like 20 minutes it just teleported me and I ended up on a ship. wandered around a bit, went down a ladder into a room filled with water. Couldn't get back up the ladder no matter what I tried. after 10 minutes or so I gave up and rerolled and chose the Practical start.

There is a broken ladder on that ship in high seas, due to be fixed on next update so - until that is done, the best route into the server is the 'practical' option. I'll get that update on asap (we are working with an EE issue atm that precludes my doing so now).

There are three signs between entry and Haggis, we try to keep it brief but there are some bits of info we try to share for the benefit of all (via the signs). Inventories being full is one of the things they explain - your PC starts on a long ship voyage so has all of his/her worldly possession on them. We reason it is easier and better to have players just throw away things they do not want rather than force them to 'go shopping' as their first adventure.

Brachra wrote:
... and headed out into the tutorial area. again I was met with so many items, things to read and stuff to do that Again maybe it was just me and my mood but after running around there for quite some time, not ever getting fishing to work no matter how hard I tried because it was "too far away". Becoming "Slowed" from touching a fern and trying my darndest to use a rope to climb down, only to be shot into the sky, fall and then die slowly. I rerolled.

Fishing is broken in the tutorial area (only) we are making adjustments to the fishing scripts and the next update should repair this error. Being slowed ... the ferns are explained by the adjacent sign where it states that ferns conceal 'free climb' points that anyone can use but that these are dangerous. The slow effect signifies you have fallen, broken or sprained something. It does wear off after a while, it can be made to wear of faster if you use the 'splint' item on self.

Brachra wrote:
Fast forward, skipped tutorial, ended up in town, ran around a bit and eventually logged off, uninstalled and contacted steam for a refund.


I excuse the long rant, but you guys really do seem like the type of community I am looking for. That my friends are looking for.
You all seem like great people, this server seems like a great place and for years I have looked back at NWN and thought about playing it because it just feels so.....DND to me..
But last night ruined my experience and I'm not saying at all that its not partly or even mostly my fault but even telling me that i had to be a member just to get the correct link to CEP. or a more updated and focused Installation guide and such would have drastically improved how my night was going.

It is sad to hear you gave up so soon. I would help immediately but cannot be around 24x7 - and as luck would have it you were on the server while I was not. We do try to post here on the forum all the info you need to login and get started, I do acknowledge that the offering is a work in progress and we try to refine it based on user feedback (thanks again for your feedback, it resulted in some improvements already today - specifically, that cep link is fixed).

Brachra wrote:
I'm not sure if I'm going to re-buy the game. I refunded it out of anger and I was tired at the point. I would really like a place to call "Home" away from home. A place to adventure and meet new people. People like you guys!


You want new players?

Make it easier and more appealing for them to want to get into this. This world of NWN and PW servers that there is really truly not that much of a community for and thus the information on getting into everything is already limited.


Thank you all for your time reading my huge rant.

and thank you for welcoming me to your community (if I'm even welcome at this point now)

You are always welcome here. I appreciate your feedback and you have my condolences for any negative experience - we work to make it better everyday. If you do get NWN:EE again, send me a message, allow me to give you the walk-thru of the tutorial so you can see for yourself what awesome features exist here.

Really appreciate that reply!

And no, for some reason the ONLY website I am able to find when searching ArgentumRegio on my browser is
Aldohral.forumotion.com
and it looks drastically different from that picture.

Thanks for clearing up all that other stuff. Its good to know it wasn't just me being stupid and not doing things correctly.

I ended up managing to catch my refund before it finished. I'm going to give it another shot!

Friend Brachra,

I look forward to meeting you when you get a chance to visit again. Just fyi, we are holding an event this afternoon our "Sunday Afternoon Social" where we host a meet and greet event... answer questions and the like. Join us if you can!

Hrmmm, maybe it was best we missed each other as you exited the bath house, haha imagine a pally meeting my amorous witch in a nejkid place... Hahaha! I'm glad things got sorted, once I get out of being dead again... I'll try to show ya around a bit.

Friend Brachra,

It was a pleasure to meet you over the weekend. I'm glad we were able to resolve your questions. This is a very strange server, very unlike any other I've seen, yet, once you wrap your head around what it offers, the allure is certain.

Enjoy the server! I hope to see you on the server again soon.

It pure epic awesomness wrapped into NWN!

The IS NOTHING else like it.

Nothing!

and catch us role-playing adventurers around, even better!!!!