Old Udos Droxun

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gilescorey
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Re: Old Udos Droxun

Post by gilescorey » Tue Oct 17, 2017 7:42 am

Astral wrote:Now they live in harmony... that's just disappointing.
No they don't. They were stacking soldiers up against each other in the Wheels just months ago. This "good ol days *sighs*" meme needs to die.

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Karris the Anarchist
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Re: Old Udos Droxun

Post by Karris the Anarchist » Tue Oct 17, 2017 8:52 am

CJ got it right, there's more than one cold war going on in the UD between pretty much all the factions, and occasionally it breaks out into full-blown conflict.

And also, I played during old Udos - sure, it was great, a lot of conflict, a lot of intense RP. I remember when Oblodra Draaka basically wiped out my House, Xymox, in one fateful night, and it was great and well-deserved. But do not underestimate the human ability to romanticize the past when the present is found lacking. The drow RP I've found recently since my late return to the UD is every bit as fueled by internal conflict, ripe with danger and mistrust between even those you call your allies. I have joined up with House Serenthal, and even though we are all 'One House', the job of the Matron is pretty keeping a solid bunch of chaotic evil psychopaths in line and them from killing one another, which can only be done through fear and intimidation and a personal show of supreme power. There is absolutely no cookie-cutting going on. Kill, or be killed.

In essence, everything that it's supposed to be.
That which doesn't kill you, simply makes you... stranger.

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Re: Old Udos Droxun

Post by Sab1 » Tue Oct 17, 2017 3:11 pm

I don't see things as good ol days, Udos was a lot of fun for those who liked Llothite rp, if you weren't a fan of Lloth, hated to be bossed about, etc, Udos probably wasn't that fun. I don't think ohh Udos was the best ever, and things were getting a bit empty there so was probably time for it to go. As a drow I just liked it more then the current UD city simply because I loved the feeling you got at it's height of being in a drow city forced to deal with it's harsh culture. When I played a drow that was what I was seeking at the time. As the UD population dropped and Udos started to get empty, it was dull there.

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Re: Old Udos Droxun

Post by Jagel » Fri Oct 27, 2017 3:23 pm

*deep breath* I remember the Underdark before there was an Udos Dro'Xun. There were a couple of houses, that's it.

I was convinced by a friend to try Arelith because of drow rp and I really fell in love with it. I could probably write pages about the glorious days of yore. There really were some incredibly fun times back in the different versions of Udos Dro'Xun.

The old Elg'Carin days, playing both Qu'el'saruk and Ul'saruk, shaping Melee Magthere rp, going on patrols, doing promotions and trials, house wars, intrigue *deep sigh*. Dria'fiend and Elg'Carin merging under Shai'rin, squaring off against the Killian Yath. Warring with Urblexis Grond, being part of the first Web (wait, those never existed nvm). Those were indeed the days *another dreamy sigh*

It was also really frustrating for us, the "hardcore" drow rp'ers when other players did not conform to our strict Llothlite/Menzo version of drow rp. It took me years to realise that my own point of view was part of the problem. If my rp, immersion and fun depended on other players following my idea of a fun rp-environment for drow. I agree that the Pit Town days are not exactly glory days to be fondly remembered but I had a lot of fun playing a drow from a fallen noble house and getting dragged into plots that involved other races and a lot of other delightful players.

I really do not miss Udos Dro'Xun. The only way to make a drow exclusive city fun would be to make the underdark part server mechanically drow-centric and I don't think that's a good idea. I love what's been done with Andunor.

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Re: Old Udos Droxun

Post by hmm2 » Sat Oct 28, 2017 2:37 am

Dunshine wrote:I'll probably never get that immerged
in my characters again, simple because of the lack of time...
But... but...
playing more gives
a clearer look at what players want. : 3
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Re: Old Udos Droxun

Post by Meglath » Mon Oct 15, 2018 6:27 pm

Hello all!

I realize I'm necro-ing a dead thread, but in my defence I was specifically ordered by the server-owner to do so.

On October 12th.

Of 2017.

( IronGron and I are both members of the Gallifrey Base Doctor Who fan forum, and I logged into that site this morning for the first time since August last year, to find to my surprise a PM from him suggesting I check this thread out. So here I am! Opinionated and all. )

(( By the by, IronGron also advised me there's a ton of Doctor Who easter eggs around Arelith; I'm wondering if anyone's been attacked by a Weeping Angel? Because if the Devs haven't figured out how to script it so statues only attack when the camera-angle is turned away from them and then send the PCs they kill back in time over to the Fixed Level server, I shall be mightilly disappointed ))

((( On a further-note, if anyone's sent PMs on this forum to my old Meglith account, I've lost my password and can't be bothered to bother the admins to help me log in. Sorry! )))
Xanos950 wrote:
Thu Oct 12, 2017 11:32 am
I occasionally hear the name mentioned on the forums as ".. back then in the good old cycles in Udos.." and I've ever since been wondering how it actually was back then? Are there old players around that can describe what it was like?

It's been made pretty clear that Andunor isn't a drow city, but it's then also compared to Udos and Pit town. Something that even in ingame lore is kept pretty vague, and i don't care about the FOIG response as I'm just curious myself, as i want to learn about server history.

So... any oldtime players here that can tell me... What is Udos, what was it like, and what the hell happened?
Hey there! I'm an old-time Udos player. Jagel predates me, but I predate Norf, EnigmaticSpirit and Cuchilla. Though clearly they have more staying power. 'Sup dudes!

I started playing shortly after the Amia and Arelith servers split, with Arelith going more hardcore RP and Amia staying casual and kooky.

Udos Dro'xun's creation predates me, but when I started it was very small and the Lore wasn't really enforced. Udos was originally one map-area. There was a bar with a rat-challenge for newbies, there was a market, and a few buildings for factions to hang in, but nothing like what we eventually got. There was no Underdark, per se - outside Udos' city-gates were a few maps with epic-level monsters, but as a noob I never got to explore those.

In the centre of Udos there was a portal to Cordor, where you'd find cat-ladies and "vampires" and celestials and High Priests of Bane hanging out and chatting and teaming up to go hunting for XP and gold. Arelith was on the road to being a serious RP server, but still had a ways to evolve. There were no dedicated Underdark areas for noobs, so low level Drow hung out in Cordor like everyone else and joined parties with elves and dwarves and paladins to go hunting for XP.

Drow RP was definitely casual; there were four Houses (Baenre, Elg-Carin, Fuma-Vhid and Dria'fiend) that sort-of competed politically, but no one took it very seriously.

Some players would indeed use the Lingo, but not too much. As a noob I was told I should learn the military-ranks, learn to say "Thank you" and "Of course" but nobody expected you to know anything else. 99% of Drow RP was in English and everyone was chill.

About a year later, the Devs of the Day revamped the server, banned Drow from Cordor, clamped down on cat-ladies... etc.

Udos got a pretty sweet redesign. The whole city now hung over a bottomless chasm; buildings were placed on ledges atop stalagmites connected by suspended bridges. We got a bunch of NPC soldiers patrolling the streets, we got expanded markets with NPCs whose dialogue suggested real personalities, we got revamped faction-Houses with dungeons for torture-RP, and the wild-Underdark got a few expanded areas for mid-level hunting... but the wilderness was still very sparse compared to today. For the most part, my now-mid-level Drow still went to the Surface to hunt. Most of my contemporaries at this time were higher level than me, so I also just tagged along with them and just collected XP and gold without much bother...

...but that's because the "in-crowd" had accepted me. For newer players, it was tougher, and few stuck with it. Udos became a town with solely mid-to-high level PCs, and no one else coming up the ranks.
Ork wrote:
Thu Oct 12, 2017 12:39 pm
Pretty much anyone that refers to the "good old days of Udos Droxun" are blind to how terrible the place was to everyone else.
Well... I don't fully agree, and I'm not actually sure if you're referring to my generation of Udos-players or the groups who replaced us (more on them later) but I have to admit these words can, from certain perspectives, accurately apply to me and my group.

We became, very much, a clique.

I want to say, though, that part of the problem was geographic. There were no low-level areas in the Underdark to hunt in for quite some time, and the portals to the Surface where the low-levels could hunt were harder to access. A higher-level player had to escort you through the high-level NPCs to reach the Surface, get you to a Surface-portal to activate it, and only then could you explore and hunt at your leisure.

And to be honest, the higher-level Drow were disinclined to make things easy for newbs.

We were wary of A) Drizzt-clones, and B) pridegamers, and C) players ignorant of Drow lore. We were happy to give newbs tips on what Drow RP was so long as they knew the background and were fun to hang with, but we were trying to enjoy our spare-time - someone whose comprehension of the Drow was limited to "Evil elves" required a heck of a lot of mentoring before they'd fit in. Didn't always have the patience.

So we became, I think, too insular and way-less-helpful than we should have been.

Plus, in-character, the cool RP was with the council-meetings to plot the downfall of rival factions, the prisoner-sacrifices in the Temple of Lolth... As we took the RP more seriously, these events became invite-only. You had to have a high rank, in character, to deserve to participate. Newbs needed-not-apply. Our RP became much more crisp and "realistic", but much less welcoming.

This fed the impression that Surface-players had of us as being, y'know, rude.

I remember Septire made a Drow mage and stuck with it for several months, despite having nowhere to hunt. He started using an exploit - sending his familiar into the Vault to draw out Epic hostile NPCs, then drawing them all the way back to Udos for the Udos NPCs to kill for him, for XP. I remember berating him in Tells for using an Exploit, but he of course flatly pointed out he had no other options if he wanted to level up and be able to join the rest of us properly... None of us had taken the time to get him to the Surface to activate portals.

And Septire KNEW the Drow lore, he was an eager RP-er, he could have fit in well... So you can imagine how hard it was to fit in for a more casual player!

Still, while we were way too clique-y, our RP was genuinely awesome.
Irongron wrote:
Thu Oct 12, 2017 1:10 pm
At its height Udos was extremely well roleplayed, really the first settlement in Arelith that established a strong sense of narrative and setting. It was a place of heavy RP, and many of those who chose to play there did so because it offered a level of immersion that was unmatched elsewhere.

The extent to which the players established social structures, hierarchies and a definitive sense of place is something I would love to see done in the more 'generic' settlements...

...For all its ills, my hat is still off to those early pioneers of Underdark roleplay.
Thankee kindly, I'd agree with you - we were awesome RPers ;)

At least half of us earned 40 RPRs, the rest had 30s. I don't know how things are nowadays, but back then, only something like 3% of the server had a 40 RPR, and to so many of us collected in one faction meant the DMs paid us a bit of extra attention, if only to be entertained by the stories we were telling. Those DMs started saying on the forums, regularly, that the best RP around was happening in the Underdark... which I'm sure made many Surface-players a little jealous - especially when they made new Drow to join us, and then found they couldn't A) level up, or B) get invited to our awesome, private RP.

As our insular RP got more and more serious, we did start using the Drow lingo more and more around this time, but it wasn't (yet) as bad as...
yellowcateyes wrote:
Thu Oct 12, 2017 3:24 pm
Xas, shows dossta heart is still that of a kivvil. Dos are naut ready to join a qu'ellar. Llolth tu malla, aluve' jaluk.
By-the-by, you're close, but it's "Lloth tlu malla" ;)

All that hyper-lingo garbage would come later - but I'll get to that.
Durvayas wrote:
Thu Oct 12, 2017 12:16 pm
At its peak, it was a bustling drow city with up to five or six active houses at once, or so I hear.
Nah, we only maxed out at four. And bottomed out at one.

In fact, during our "RP-er's golden age" Udos only had one truly active House.

Not all of the Drow Houses evolved with the RP-serious tone of the server. House Baenre died away, and House Fuma-Vhid became largely inactive - though one Fuma-Vhid player continued to log in every few weeks to join hunts. House Dria'fiend had some brilliant RP-ers, but unlike me they also had jobs and social lives to occupy their time, so the political RP of Udos Dro'xun sort-of died away, just at the time when we finally had an environment to encourage Drow RP awesomeness.

The Drow players who were most dedicated coalesced into House Elg'Carin, which became the First House of the city. (many Elg'Carin players also, it should be said, knew each other IRL so that further exacerbated our clique-i-ness). Political RP became purely about advancing rank within the House. While there was scheming and back-stabbing, it was all among the same 10 players, so... I'd say that things became a little static.

Also, because we were banned from Cordor, we became really isolated from the rest of the server's factions. Everyone else started in Cordor, formed relationships, had a web of RP going on among factions that wove in and out of Cordor - but when Surfacers and Drow crossed paths, we were all encouraged by the Devs to be hostile and to "take no prisoners". Which made sense, and was fun in it's own way, but started to feed an impression by the other factions that the Drow were standoffish, elitist, and uptight.
Durvayas wrote:
Thu Oct 12, 2017 12:16 pm
What I know is it used to have a functioning gate, where you could only get inside if you were in a party with a drow. There were a pair of fleshwarp golems/monstrosities that guarded the 'towers of woe'. It was once an impregnable fortress, from which the drow would sally forth and raid the surface.
No, not at first - anyone could get into Udos for a good long while, though the NPCs were scripted to be hostile to non-Drow (unless in a party with Drow).

But, you know, if you were a bored Epic level surfacer looking to raid a hostile faction, having a city of hostile NPC's working with Epic level hostile PCs was great.

There were times where two or three times a week, I'd get back from a hunt with loot to sell, only to find every NPC in the city dead... It was frustrating. I don't remember any specific player or group actually tagettoing us for griefing, but the fact the whole Surface was hostile to us meantwe'd be targetted by one group less than 24 hours after another already had. It was frustrating.

So the Devs put in an Uber-Gate and the Demonflesh Golems to guard us against effective griefing - but this "special treatment" that no other faction had further exacerbated surface-player's impression that the Drow were elitists who whined and then got ridiculous perks.
Nitro wrote:
Thu Oct 12, 2017 11:40 am
I think the word "empty" describes it best. Sure, you could log in on a lucky time and catch a handful of people around, but for most of the time it was an absolute ghost town.
Yeah, it's true.

The Underdark was getting developed more and more, there were now NPC Goblin warrens, Stinger tunnels, and Drider Pits for newbs to level up in without going to the surface.

And a new Drow faction- House Drak'aa - was started by a new player we all instantly liked RP'ing with - 4sakN - who broke into our OOC clique and who also proved great at encouraging other newbs to stick with their Drow. It was exciting; I was hoping that in a few months we might have inter-House politics / RP, not just the internal stuff.

...ebut then, our awesome collective of 40 RPRs started getting scooped up to DM. 4sakN also became a DM, which stunted his new House's growth. Remember, the Drow old guard was basically a faction of 10-ish players, so having 5 of us take on DM responsibilities all at the same time was bad news. Udos definitely became a ghost-town.

For me, still playing a lot but not being a DM, it started to feel like I ~was~ the Underdark, all on my own.

Still, so many Drow-DMs all at once, having better access to the ears of the Dev team did spur Underdark development.
(that, plus the entrepreneurship of a couple Duergar players who showed there was real player-interest in having non-Drow opportunities in the Underdark!)

It was decided that two new PC settlements would be created - Urblexis Grond for goblins, kobolds, Duergar and Svirfneblin (Orogs and Gnolls were added later), and Jhared's Trading Post, which was originally just a Duergar NPC with a tent or something, but got expanded to a full trade-hall midway between Udos and the Surface. The plan was to give Underdark newbs more variety for RP to encourage repopulation of the stagnated PC population of the Underdark, while also having Jhared's be a neutral spot for Drow to RP with Surfacers without the open hostility that was requisite everywhere else - it was quite refreshing.

I think if there had been a more dedicated group of high level Underdark players to encourage this growth, it would have gone smoother - but like I say, too many of us had responsibilities as DMs to devote time to this.

The Newbs in Grond were fantastic, though - I remember hanging out there a lot and really enjoying seeing those factions start from the ground-up.

But the Drow RP was suffering. New Drow players... They didn't have the same mentality of the older Drow players.
Memelord wrote:
Thu Oct 12, 2017 2:53 pm
Aaaaaand then we had a big influx of players from Arena/PvP-servers, most of whom were barely English-literate and had a somewhat tenuous grasp on what RP was (hey, almost all of us were at that point at some time, right?) and most of whom settled down in the UD, and it was all downhill from that point on.
Yeah, that's... I would agree.

Although I should also note that it's around this time that Norfildor joined and tried to follow in 4sakN's footsteps of establishing a new House to rival the Old Guard, and got a fair bit further, working with a fair bit less, so kudos to Norf on that.
Norfildor wrote:
Thu Oct 12, 2017 8:33 pm
TBH, my greatest beef with Udos was the way how priestesses of Lolth had been automatically given power over other drow characters as early as upon the character creation.
Yeah, I advocated on the forums a few times that Drow Clerics should require a 20 RPR to go ahead, but the Devs never took that idea...

But yeah, we got a bunch of Arena-minded players influxing to Udos Dro'xun and setting a fairly shallow tone of RP I didn't really enjoy. Maybe if I'd taken more time, in the earlier years, to encourage new players in their Drow characters, I'd have been better equipped to help these Arena-folks in adjusting to Arelith's game-style. As it was, I was used to being standoffish to players outside of my clique, and I stayed that way.

(in my defence, I did try with some of them - found one of them was a 9/11 Truther who would not stop bothering me by Tells with his conspiracy theories!)

And like others noted, their skills with English varied.
Cortex wrote:
Thu Oct 12, 2017 3:16 pm
All I remember is when I tried playing a drow, every other drow played spoke some form of common-xanalress dialect(before xanalress was added as a language) and I couldn't understand anything.
Me too.

I'd been playing a Drow for years, held a 40 RPR for years, and I couldn't keep up with the lingo these Arena-folks were using. Which, well, I guess, given their limited English, I guess I'd have struggled to understand them even if they only used English.

I believe this is why the Drow lingo started getting ridiculous - if you're already being told to RP in a foreign language when all you want to do is level your min-maxed character, I can understand the appeal of 1) seeing Drow lingo as equally appealing as English, and 2) using Drow lingo as a mask for your shallow RP-style.

Definitely got off-putting.

Though the upside was - until now, we only had Elven and Undercommon as Drow languages. I think the Drow lingo bullshit being vomitted out by these jokers spurred the Devs to implement the Drow language too, to make them look as ridiculous IC as we all knew they were OOC. And the Drow language function is pretty sweet, right?
Jagel wrote:
Fri Oct 27, 2017 3:23 pm
*deep breath* I remember the Underdark before there was an Udos Dro'Xun. There were a couple of houses, that's it.

I was convinced by a friend to try Arelith because of drow rp and I really fell in love with it. I could probably write pages about the glorious days of yore. There really were some incredibly fun times back in the different versions of Udos Dro'Xun.

The old Elg'Carin days, playing both Qu'el'saruk and Ul'saruk, shaping Melee Magthere rp, going on patrols, doing promotions and trials, house wars, intrigue *deep sigh*. Dria'fiend and Elg'Carin merging under Shai'rin, squaring off against the Killian Yath. Warring with Urblexis Grond, being part of the first Web (wait, those never existed nvm). Those were indeed the days *another dreamy sigh*
Mmm, yeah.

The sequence of Dria'fiend and Elg'Carin merging was a true highlight for me, too.

OOC it functioned as a way to wrap up characters and storylines from players who weren't interested in playing anymore. It wasn't really planned to be that, the whole story was IC-driven... But organically, it happened to shake out in such a way that the characters of players who had mostly become inactive had one last dramatic hurrah before dying, and leaving the characters of players who were still active able to enact a transition of power, all IC and in an awesome story.

One of our House mages attempted to stage a coup and put a new Priestess on the throne, but was betrayed by her snivelling former apprentice (me!!! :D ). A brief civil war started, and the would-be New Guard went down, with my mistress backstabbed for triple-digit sneak-attack damage by her best friend, Elg'Carin's master-assassin.

To celebrate the victory, the Elg'Carin Matron ordered the Old Guard on a grand expedition to kill our other Drow rivals, House Freth in the Vault, but the hunt went... bad... Many big cheese's died, including the Matron herself. Though my character did manage to activate a portal lens and escape :)

With both the Old Guard leadership and the New Guard leadership dead, the First House of Udos Dro'xun was cast adrift, but with many powerful males still alive - notably Jagel's chief warrior, as well as the aforemented Chief Assassin, and of course lil' old me, representing Sorcere.

We three commanded a sizeable portion of the city's army and so couldn't be exiled or executed, but also couldn't lead the city, being males. So we negotiated for House Dria'fiend's matron to absorb our forces and leap-frog from Third House to First House.

It was a crazy great run of RP that fulfilled all my fantasies about what Drow RP should and could be - and for a few months it worked, as the Dria'fiend players became much more involved in Udos than they ever had been before... But real life crept up. The Dria'fiend players were all friends in France in real life, they found they had other things they wanted to do with their lives rather than run a fictional faction, and so eventually we crumbled.

The old Elg'Carin players were absorbed by House Z'Ress, led by Norfildor, who was still soldiering on to make / keep Udos awesome, but... the game just wasn't so much fun anymore for me, and I guess Jagel also felt his character had come to an end. He retired his main Drow first in an epic story of betrayal-by-Norfildor, and the Devs honoured him by trapping his soul into an NPC-golem. A few months later, I RP'd that my character died quietly in his sleep; dying of old age (a rare fate for a Drow).

I gather that Jagel still plays casually, every time I pop in I see traces of him and every few years we catch up over Tells if I happen to catch him.

But I'd lost interest in Arelith and in Udos; the RP on the whole just wasn't as good as in the "good old days" now that almost all my original clique-y friends were gone :(

Plus I had real life to start living; I travelled, went to a good school, met a few girls, started my career. Tried returning to Arelith a few times, over and again over the years, but never sunk back in.
Jagel wrote:
Fri Oct 27, 2017 3:23 pm
I agree that the Pit Town days are not exactly glory days to be fondly remembered but I had a lot of fun playing a drow from a fallen noble house and getting dragged into plots that involved other races and a lot of other delightful players.
Yeah... I was only barely playing at this point, but what I saw of Pit Town, I didn't really enjoy... I did try my hand for a few weeks at playing a Drow Priestess looking to restore the "Drow empire" and had some laughs, but...
Jagel wrote:
Fri Oct 27, 2017 3:23 pm
I really do not miss Udos Dro'Xun. The only way to make a drow exclusive city fun would be to make the underdark part server mechanically drow-centric and I don't think that's a good idea. I love what's been done with Andunor.
Mm, I'm sad Udos is gone, but I'd agree it had to go.

I wasn't present for the Cataclysm, so I can't comment on how it was executed, but,

A) The quality of RP in Udos when I left was... frustrating, and I think there were some players who bullied others (which I was also guilty of, at times)
B) As Jagel says, the Drow-exclusive city just doesn't work for what the Underdark has become.

I would actually argue - despite how much I loved Udos - it was actually a mistake from Day One, given how it encouraged clique-y-ness and isolated us from the rest of the server. The best possible option would have been that Udos hosted Duergar, Svirfs, Goblins and Kobolds from Day One, and that the sharper Drow RP that evolved would have incorporated them from the beginning, in a fleshed-out Underdark that had ample hunting grounds for low-level PCs.

Obviously that was impossible given constraints on the Devs time - they couldn't snap their fingers and create a perfect server, it had to evolve organically.

But if we'd had, then, what we have now... the clique-y-ness, the OOC drama, the Cataclysm, all of it... Maybe it would have been better?

Or maybe not.

Hey, Arelith is still going strong almost, what, TWO DECADES after it started, and now with an evidently thriving Underdark centered about Arundor. Looks like it all worked out for the best.

More power to you, peeps!

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Re: Old Udos Droxun

Post by EnigmaticSpirit » Mon Oct 15, 2018 7:35 pm

Hey there! I'm an old-time Udos player. Jagel predates me, but I predate Norf, EnigmaticSpirit and Cuchilla. Though clearly they have more staying power. 'Sup dudes!
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Re: Old Udos Droxun

Post by Irongron » Mon Oct 15, 2018 9:24 pm

Meglath wrote:
Mon Oct 15, 2018 6:27 pm
Hello all!
That was geat, and really enjoyable read.

A nostalgic trip down memory lane was just what the Doctor ordered, so thank you.

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Re: Old Udos Droxun

Post by Dirac » Mon Oct 15, 2018 11:27 pm

UD is currently abuzz with fantastic RP, btw.

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Re: Old Udos Droxun

Post by Durvayas » Wed Oct 17, 2018 8:26 pm

The mightiest of thread necromancies.

Welcome back.
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Re: Old Udos Droxun

Post by Mithreas » Thu Oct 18, 2018 3:48 am

Seems fitting, for a city where necromancy was practiced on a daily basis.
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Re: Old Udos Droxun

Post by 3Clod » Mon Aug 17, 2020 1:25 pm

I've been playing RPG for years starting with pen and paper, with Max who taught me and kept on giving me advices over my necromancer here on Arelith. Some part of my char had his soul too. Sometimes he visited me and sat by while I played, and we passed the time thinking about what we could make my toon do of fun. It was LOL time when we had him to ask to a certain char if it was interested in some implant to improve its skills in singing, quickly changing subject as the other refused firmly.

After the pen and paper period, came out NWN in Italy and we all spent some year on an ITA server. There I met Helron, Calia and Druxia, great roleplayers who taught me more about RPing, making me grow. I miss them but I had to stop playing when the staff ruined the entire server by harassing, insulting personally the players, ruining the chars over we had worked for years, and even isolating any girl in the server for "personal" reasons.
I've lost these persons in real life as in game, thanx to an invasive and immature and stupid staff.

Then came the time to leave NWN and I spent some year on Lineage2, ITA retail server. I was so used to RP... that experience taught me more. I was stubborn in RPing even if the people around me was not always understanding what I was doing. I had to learn how to entwine that world to my gamestyle, remaining faithful to my char without having the others bored.
And there was a player there, Riff. He was the usual powamage of MMORPGs but he loved RPing from time to time. He used to mantain a slight line of conduct over his char, giving him a bit of personality and took advantage of me too. Why I'm mentioning him here? Because he had a great attitude to RP, choked by an unfitting game. I admit that I'm emotional and tend to be affected by those I like but he's the only one who was able to make me cry for a game. It was a stupid scene where he was explaining to me why he loved to give equipment to his clan's members. The way he emoted his own eyes, his speech, while saying that it was because he loved to see the eyes of his people getting brightened at the sight of a Nightmare armour, his feelings at that sight, were so light, fluent, natural it moved me to tears. Kinda stupid? I wish to all of you RPers, to meet a person like this.
Now we went to some quarrel and I don't talk with him since a couple of years. Yet his style I keep with me.

After this I returned to NWN. Italy has no more good servers so I tried abroad and found Arelith. I feared I'd not be good at rping in english but I tried and in the UD I found hospitality and fun. We were minding our own business and now, reading this thread, I remember why I left the game: We would not search for troubles, visiting surface only as a dare and always roleplaying the hate of the sun, quickly leaving while surfacers would more and more visit the underdark without roleplaying the fear for the deadliest creatures of the forgotten realms, us. It was like they were on a picnic, I remember we captured and tortured one (what should we do? we're drow in our home...).
This is what I liked, the roleplay-at-all-costs, I'd have watched my character die IC if it had meant having a good story behind him to tell.

The first char I met in UD I can't remember the name. I met her in the trade hall of Udos and assaulted me with a sea of emotes. She described her two skeletons behind her, her own fangs yellow and her sick eyes, her fingers like claws while grabbing my shoulder, her inner convinction she was beauty and completely evil. Meanwhile she was leaving me room to speak my part. It was like RPing with Stephen King. Her name had an F inside but I can't be sure. Greetings and thanks to her if she recognizes herself in this description, she taught me much and for some time I even used her as reference point to emote my own char.

Then I met Blaka and Zar Zek. They taught me much in pve and pvp, completely changing my char. Their lessons on field, arena or just theorical directed my steps and when I reached level 17 I saw that my starting choices would limit my necromancer. I decided to build him again from level 1 even if some things can't be corrected without creating a whole new one. They'll remain his flaws... after all I'm not searching for the perfect build, if so I'd play a pvp server and there's more than needed here.
Blaka has left a hole leaving as seeress. It was hard not making my char begging for her to change idea.

After them came Xalelazang. She had more than an advice over my char. Helping me OOCly with the nixie and with part of the build, and helping me ICly with a fun-to-play-with char. I feel her fresh and reminds me of the good times with Druxia.
Xalelazang is an active char so she's often in dangerous situations, patrols over our land or tortures. Playing with her is thrilling and she doesn't make weigh upon me the difference of power between our chars. She got even killed sometimes but she helped us both out of those embarrasing situations with style mantaining her RP.

Velenial is the funniest assassin ever. We had many chances to make our chars interact, mostly pushed by his readiness to help. Spies, intrigues, guarding (my char)... If he had higher intelligence he could understand when I talk to him about magic.
But he's just an assassin with high charisma without being a sorcerer and high intelligence without being a mage (I can't say how much high, though): the smartest and most charming assassin ever.

Aunquav' is one of the funniest I played with, crazy OOCly and ICly. You'll notice I love an OOC part when I feel I'm accepted. Any of these chars I'm speaking about I appreciate as players.
Aunquav' showed me tons of her chars, some cute, some scary, some funny, I think she likes to change. It's fun watching what she's able to imagine in game. She keeps you ready.
Aunquav' once told me:
-"You're one who follows his RP wherever it leads him, right?"
Accepting the character, roleplay it until it's useless, facing the consequences of your choices. It's just pixels as Cuchilla said once, sure, but I think that we give them our time and our energy. They are more than pixels.

And in fact I find this description fitting even more with Cuchilla. She really gives me the feeling of "following your RP". She studies deep her chars and deals with them with passion.
I met her with Clyasy but we exchanged not more than some emote at the start. Then I had the chance to talk and found her style amazing. She was like telling a story and I love listening. I personally think that RPers divide in two categories: tellers and listeners, DMs and actors. She's more a DM to me. I mean, she charmed almost all the malehood of Udos and attracted the attention of almost any female around (expecially Xalelazang). And I was sure it would happen after just hearing the first words of Fadriatta. If this is not magic... She belongs to the Sorcere è_é
So Cuchilla is also teaching to those who have ears to hear, while simply playing her role. I keep on learning about the drowish society, when I meet her ssin.
IC I had mixed reactions cause she was female so better than me and yet lower in rank. A ssin is like the lowest form of drow... Only a kobold would be lower. And my mage despised her, still feeling her IC unavoidable charm and yet grumbling about her. He worked hard to make her join sorcere, even if she mistook his interest for love so he had to show her his real face under the skull mask, to show her how lifeless, how dark and far from love was his path:
The ssin d'aerth Fadriatta is one of my many concerns, these times. I still long for her innate power. Having her in the Sorcere would mean that I'm right and the archmage completely wrong, reguarding her kind. Seeing her potential used to dig coal is such an awful waste in my eyes, and I could know many better uses for it.
I prepared a cunning plan to demonstrate my theory. I took a scroll and poured the expensive powder of gold on it. Then I spoke the archane words of my most powerful spell, the Finger of Death, and they took form of runes and symbols on the paper. Finally I gave the scroll to the jalil and asked her if she was able to understand what was written on it. Since she could do it, I passed on the second part of the plan. She has to study that formula, memorize it and add to the voice the movements of the hands.
It took me hours. First I had to show her a relation between her dancing skills and the runes traced in the air by the hands, so I explained her the matter of timing. She calls it rhythm but in substance it's the same: when a mage calls forth the magical powers, he has to make the right pauses between the words so the weave has the time to take form before being progressively shaped into the final spell. This requires great concentration because if the pauses are wrong the mage fails the spell and the weave fades. I can see analogies between this and the music even if there's no melody to chant but pure timing and strenght of will. Anyway I showed her only the analogies, so she can find the way on her own without being slowed down by doubts. If she applies herself to the scroll, memorizing the words and gestures, she will be able to cast it like any other mage. It will take time, obviously, it's a spell complicated but I need it just like this. Having the ssin to cast a cantrip would prove nothing. She has to show she can handle high level magics.
I showed her how she had yet learned on her own to recall powers that not even the apprentices ready to be raised to m'elzarhood could. Like the Ice Storm spell that costed me years of hard study, she learned it after some excursion on the surface where she saw this elemental phenomena in nature.
Yet, learning from written runes and obliged movements, seems a limit to her. I think that this way she feels her liberty limited and her mind gets distracted easily, so I preferred not pushing her too much. I just forbid her to use that spell as part of one of her songs. I don't really need a carnage as coronation of her shows.
And she was adorably evil, like when she scared the tiny kobold with us with an emote so abrupt and aggressive out of the blue XD

Then Godo who's really a brat. It took me some time to find a decent way to deal with him and in these terms he made my char grow. Difficulties are welcome here. Funny goblin, stubborn to the core.

There are many others I appreciate as players, like Eowien, Lualyrr, Talab'ae, Lil'th (even if she said I'm a stuffed mage and the day after I saved her life è_é), Cas'san'dra, Fluxes, Reva, Oblodra (all females? Then Eowien's right! No, I'll put some male too), Tyran (see? A male!), Murag (another and a huge one too XD he used to run errands for me on the surface so I could remain safe in Udos like a spider waiting for a fly, ah all that wood I needed XD thanks pal for helping), Shai'llyn (oh, no, again females), Z'vhae (if only she'd play), Ami'anthrade (if only she'd play), Legode... Too many, I know that any of them knows I appreciate them and they are happy with this!

I love Eowien's char because she has a tendency I didn't explain in this post. She's scary more than an aggressive female. Y'know, she acts all sweet and seductive even, chuckling softly and such... and meanwhile you know that she has something evil in her mind. I had the proof she's a bad company the time she had it with my char for hitting her with water, and soon after poisoning her. She remained calm and quiet until we were alone in the qu'ellar, then she just punched my lil' mage-flowapowa-peaceandlove-sooo-cute in the stomach almost killing him. I never wanted to be away from her like that time. I spent days over days, after that, trying to please her by gathering emerald dusts and things for her.
So now I have my revenge confusing her unvoluntarily with my char's speeches è_é it's all planned, she'll slip into madness so soon.

And I know I missed Skeflock in this list. I always thought at him as an ugly kobold.
Instead I met this svierf... svrefn... deep gnome in his Grondhouse which is really impressive and cute to visit. After all of his wise and evil speech, I left him with the impression of a cunning tyrant, with many secrets that I'll probably never be able to share because of the many things keeping each other distant.
Then I met him later in Jhared's and he stopped by, from a little distance, and greeted me with the *greets* emote and the little hand waving... While Keran'th was looking at him suspiciously, I wanted to squeeze that lil' creature!!!! and I was like "OMG now I want a Skeflock puppy on my bedside table".
(I know I love tenderness too much :P a gnome greeting is just too sweet, dressed with that heavy armor trying to be impressively scary... and then just weaving the tiny hand tilting the head)
Lloth tlu malla!

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Re: Old Udos Droxun

Post by Batrachophrenoboocosmomachia » Mon Aug 17, 2020 3:13 pm

Not going to lie 3Clod, I was really really sorely tempted to make a thread necromancy joke, or post a picture of the Lamenter of the Lost Realms, but your post really was touching. Anyone who knows me knows I'm not a fan of old Udos or a lot of the play there, but even in spite of that you really did touch to the soul of this game and community.

Neverwinter Nights and the PW community are a species unto itself, there's really nothing like these servers out there anymore, or they're terribly obscure (at least to me), as I'm sure NWN is to so many who I'm sure are looking for the serious RP experience without actually playing tabletop. And while I didn't do it in Udos, this game and server is where I've made some of my closest friends (even IRL ones who happened to live nearby me and were/are truly wonderful people), and some of my best memories.

On a more personal note, Arelith is even directly responsible for helping me start my career. I had zero practical coding experience until DM Watchtower had stepped aside and patiently showed me how the old powder keg script worked, how script logic worked. I was able to dive deeper into coding after he helped me past that initial barrier, and while I'm no programmer, I absolutely owe him for opening my eyes to code logic, as I eventually learned more languages that were ultimately a key factor for me getting a job that I love.

And I know I'm not the only one to have to have those sorts of personal connections with this server. And I know everyone has bad experiences with the good too. Forget the original premise of this thread, three years old as it is. Udos had its problems - and so has the server - but ultimately I couldn't be more grateful for both it and its community.

Done.


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Re: Old Udos Droxun

Post by 3Clod » Mon Aug 17, 2020 7:00 pm

Waaaah, thank youuu! Kindest words evah 🖤👌🏻
You are very right and what you say just proves you experimented the loneliness of a rper in a world of rpg games filled with farmers and pointless pvp. Nwn 1 was the last bastion of roleplay in the world (forgive me my english, I've improved in comparison to 10 years ago but at the moment I'm not very focused on what words I'm using cause I'm at work). This is why I couldn't help but jump in again as soon as the enhanced edition of nwn came out a couple days ago. I used to play in Celtic Heroes which is the best in terms of graphic for ipad but, like Lineage, it's hard to roleplay there. Most people, by rp means cyber.
Hope this server teaches new gamers to play with a plot, to create stories. Stop hack and slash, I loved farming myself with a dwarf in lineage, hours of mining, but nothing beats a good story.
Lloth tlu malla!

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Re: Old Udos Droxun

Post by Cuchilla » Wed Aug 19, 2020 1:02 pm

3Clod wrote:
Mon Aug 17, 2020 7:00 pm
... nothing beats a good story.
Thanks for the kind words, I feel flattered, always been a pleasure sharing moments with ye! I quoted your last sentence, it's very true to me.

Aloise "Lois", Biarray "Ray", Uniethrade. INACTIVE: Ivory Bushdiggger DEAD: Cuchilla. Beliat, Clyasy. Cristyn. Fadriatta. Fraya Stensamler (Chief Librarian). Goirin. Greensleeves. Gwydynya. Hilda. Kaxandra. Trista. Willisa.


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Re: Old Udos Droxun

Post by 3Clod » Wed Aug 19, 2020 5:45 pm

rotfl fadriatta died I see from your signature XD wanna read about it, give me the link if there's one
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Re: Old Udos Droxun

Post by HinAttack » Thu Aug 20, 2020 5:49 pm

I would like to add my two coppers to this as well. As a member of House Dy'Nin, I can say that by far, it was the most inclusive RP that I have had on this server. The Brogendenstein RP is a very close second. Kudos to you Dwarves! Having the intrigue and the backstabbing in house as well as having the 15+ player groups that were in a prayer session at the slave auction block was, for me, unforgettable. Convincing elves to kill me so they can start their path to Llolth as the other 8 drow sneaks surrounded them was wonderful RP to me as well.

I can easily see how 'exclusive' we were of others. By the nature of the Drow, I played my Drow as xenophobic, to say the least.

I, too, believe that Udos Droxun needed to go. The good rp that I was exposed to was house rp, and by its very definition, it was inclusive to only house members. What other houses were doing was less important than what others in our house were conspiring. What others did outside of the city really didn't even come up.

I do miss the regular sessions with the eight or so core players on Arelith, but life interferes and folks move on to other things in RL. Good memories, but that is all they are, memories.

I do like what the devs have done with the UD and the rest of the servers. Kudos to you all for making the hard choices. There is still fun memories to be had, I am sure. For those that were excluded, I am sorry that either play time or circumstances forced that path upon you.

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Re: Old Udos Droxun

Post by Exordius » Thu Aug 20, 2020 8:36 pm

Recently found one of those DW easter eggs... the Arcane Tower itself is one. Not only did it get revealed during an event that it was dimensionally transcendent, i.e. bigger on the inside then it is on the outside but it also apparently can travel anywhere in space, time, and the planes... which means the tower is basically a Tardis lol.

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Re: Old Udos Droxun

Post by Cuchilla » Fri Aug 21, 2020 6:23 pm

3Clod wrote:
Wed Aug 19, 2020 5:45 pm
rotfl fadriatta died I see from your signature XD wanna read about it, give me the link if there's one
There is nothing to read, really. When Udos disappeared, it was difficult to find room for her. :)

Aloise "Lois", Biarray "Ray", Uniethrade. INACTIVE: Ivory Bushdiggger DEAD: Cuchilla. Beliat, Clyasy. Cristyn. Fadriatta. Fraya Stensamler (Chief Librarian). Goirin. Greensleeves. Gwydynya. Hilda. Kaxandra. Trista. Willisa.


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Re: Old Udos Droxun

Post by 3Clod » Fri Aug 21, 2020 7:17 pm

Maybe she's not dead 😳
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Re: Old Udos Droxun

Post by Fallout » Mon Aug 31, 2020 11:39 am

She is, its underdark, but it's just pixels. 8-)

Its always fun to find old player relics from Udos. I found painting i made back than in Sibayad lately after irl decade lol.

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Re: Old Udos Droxun

Post by gesseritt » Fri Sep 11, 2020 5:29 am

I used to play a matron in Udos and it was very fun, immersive and engaging at many points if you enjoy Lolthite RP (and many do still today in the current UD), but there were lulls in activity and it took players willing to invest time in leading factions to keep things going. If they disappeared, the ball would stop moving quickly.

Personally, I'd love to see multiple settlements in the UD again. The activity is certainly there for this to happen. Though, a Skullport-esque settlement like Andunor would be a necessary fixture so the UD remains inclusive and welcoming.
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Re: Old Udos Droxun

Post by Fallout » Fri Sep 11, 2020 5:54 am

I would rather add one more district in Andunor instead of settlement somewhere in UD. People use portals for places anyhow, so rather a map with houses maybe 1 area further is same thing. Slum district would give certain flavour, but on the other hand Greyport still lacks that competition Devils and Sharp have so..maybe not yet time.

I dont want "to go back" to many settlements, past is past, i like RP in Hub also gives chance for counter side to spy easier.

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Re: Old Udos Droxun

Post by Kuma » Fri Sep 11, 2020 6:22 am

gesseritt wrote:
Fri Sep 11, 2020 5:29 am
Personally, I'd love to see multiple settlements in the UD again. The activity is certainly there for this to happen. Though, a Skullport-esque settlement like Andunor would be a necessary fixture so the UD remains inclusive and welcoming.
population is nowhere near enough to manage 3 busy districts plus guilds, honestly, i can't see another city doing much unless it were in itself going to attract people that play surfacers (and a hypothetical settlement that is less inclusive than andunor is not going to make that happen)

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Re: Old Udos Droxun

Post by deserk » Fri Sep 11, 2020 1:17 pm

Personally I would love to see a separate drow settlement. The archetypical drow is xenophobic and proud (and the same could be said of many other UD races, like duergar and orogs), and wouldn't be keen to have to negotiate, congregate and compromise with races they are used to seeing used as slave labour or sacrificial lambs. Andunor makes sense as a place where drow merchants, outlaws and exiles would visit, like Mantol-Derith in Faerun, not as a place where drow nobles would willingly come to.

An additional benefit of this could be that would it would put Lolthian drow in their own settlement and separate them from drow following "heretical faiths" in Andunor, and thus those drow could more freely venerate their deities without being harassed or murdered.

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