A persistent world is a labour of love. It requires a tremendous amount of work to establish and even more work to keep it running. Pen and paper gamers often take their worlds online to open them up for everyone to play. Leanthar has taken his 10 years of campaign details and created a lush world to explore for courageous adventurers that welcomes new players and veterans. In this interview, we speak with Leanthar about his world.

Edited By DMRage on 06/09/05 12:01

Quote: Posted 06/09/05 14:09:41 (GMT) by mileswei

This is simplely not true at all. The only thing I have to say is that if the players obey the rules of the server, I guarantee they will have a blast.

Edited By DMRage on 06/09/05 14:56

Quote: Posted 06/09/05 11:46:11 (GMT) by DMRage

This is my opinion about the world of Layonara.

I got introduced to Jake, aka Ozzy of the Layonara team. He reccomended me to his server and after around three hours of getting the downloads, setting up a character and such, I began to play.

What I found was an absolute disgrace.

The areas are around twenty placeables. The roleplay is absolutely pathetic: ("hi" "Greetings..." "do u want to cmoe to the goblin marsh with me?) there are little more than three npcs and no guards in the starting town (might have changed in the last two months I havent looked back at that place, but I dont know) and shops were stupidly minimal. There wasn't even the basics, like a smithy, and the tavern had about five placeables and three creatures. There is an elitist feeling and basically everyone over level eight has a "glowy kik-***" sword. There is far too much hype surrounding this place and once you actually peel back the layer of hype and see whats beneath, you'll vomit.

They boast a team of twenty three GMs, and a huge amount of quests each month "plus character development quests." For the amount of work their lazy, thick GMs do, you could have about three very dedicated normal GMs. In the week that I played there, only once did I hear a GM even speak, yet alone host a quest. Their "key" players are nearly all close friends of Leanthar, leaving the new players, however good at roleplaying, to in the wasteside. Don't bother with this place. The head DM has absolutely no respect for his server and does very little to nothing himself, leaving the community to raise him on a throne like a fat, overstuffed king.

The Layonara Trap as I call it, is that they have all those movies, screenshots, and haks that make it seem extremely amazing. Because by the time you've even got the haks your starting to attempt to integrate into the community, those players who aren't really picky about their quality of roleplay decide to stay. So you are left with roleplay-newbs, average roleplayers who stay out of loyalty, and a few good roleplayers, nearly or all GMs, who are all level forty with "uberstaffs" and "uberswords." If you aren't a close friend of someone of particular importance, you are going to get rejected rather swiftly, and two of my friends agree with this. In this way, Layonara is very tribal. The fact that they restrict you from PVP or evil characters show they want one, single mindset: You are an adventurer. You will fight to gain experience points. You will obey the rules layed out before you. You will roleplay your character in this way, and this way only. Leanthar states that it is not manageable to have so many "problems" with PVP and evil. With 23 GMs, you would think it would be - should they not be as lazy as they have displayed themselves to be thus far.

Honestly, its not even worth trying it out to see what I claim is true or not. But should you wish to, I suggest bracing yourself for turmoil. It welcomes neither newbie nor veteran. Layonara: ask not for whom the bell tolls. It tolls for thee.

- Rage

Edited By ZeroVega on 06/09/05 15:23

Quote: Posted 06/09/05 14:54:12 (GMT) by DMRage
Oh, and by the way: GENERALLY, in adult discussion, you need to counteract at least one of your opponents points and not just type: "that is a lie."

Edited By mileswei on 06/09/05 15:35

Edited By IceDragonDuvessa on 06/09/05 15:54

Quote: 
It saddens me that you've said this cause you really sound confused. You most likely broke the rules (and they're fair rules that are in place to keep a fun air about Layonara) and are out for revenge.

Quote: 
First: There are faaaar more than twenty placeables in areas. You obviously didn't get around much.

Quote: 
Second: The RP is not pathetic unless you're speaking of those few players who are new to RP or were there for the leveling (and we can't controll who does and does not do that). Why even now, we have an Arcane Academy (player run), a Crafters Guild (player run), and a guild based on the gathering of important informatino and the defeat of evil (player run). You don't make those thing just by saying "want to go kill some goblins."

Quote: 
Third: You go back to the number of NPCs and placeables. I've played on Layo for almost two years and I can name for you eight NPCs in the starting town off the top of my head, and there are at least half a dozen others in that town, aswell as several HUNDRED others in the dozens of town throughout Layonara. Also the tavern didn't have five placables, it had tables, chairs, waitresses, drunks, an Inn Keeper, a Bar Keep, and a Kitchen for cooking!

Quote: 
Fourth: Yeah... everyone has a glowy stick, but what you fail to mention is that it's just for looks. The best thing you can get on Layonara is a +3 Weapon, and you know what almost no on has that! +2 is an incredible prize if you can buy one, and +1 is even a treat to get.

Quote: 
Fifth: I must exclaim OMG!!! I can't believe you would spread such lies. There is now no doubt in my mind that you have been banned. Leanthar has put thousands of hourse in to building Layoanra, running plot quests that some times last 5-8 hours! He's payed thousands of dollars to keep his servers up and has never demanded that his players help to support him! The GM team runs over 40 quests per month, and I constantly hear them coaching players on what is considered by all the RPing community to be bad RP! Many of Leanthars so called "close friends" have never even met the guy in person! They only know him because they've been loyal and good RPers for the time they've been they and they understand that it's his world and he's letting us play in it.

Quote: 
To end this all, Evil and PvP is Restricted, not banned. It happens, there are evil characters, and they do this so people don't go out, make a CN Wizard, powerlevel, and go around PKing new players for kicks. Also these "uberstaffs" have you ever actually seen them?! Most of the really good RPers with their so called uber staffs, are just holding plain old staffs with nothing on it! Also you ARE an adventurer. You DO want to gain experiance (which can be done via quests or just good RP is a GM happens to see you! Hehe, and as for the rules, you're darn right you'll be expected to follow them! Hello! They're there for a reason! 23 GMs... Hmmm.... and all of them have LIVES to live! Real ones! They don't have time to sit around baby sitting. They run quests, they spends their hours making custom content, running CDQs, they play their characters, and they donate money to Layonara from their real life jobs. All things very few people do... please if you're going to trash us, at least get your information right.

Quote: 
I think you insult your own intellectual capacity by insinuating that you started this as an "Adult discussion." Such blatant fabrication is what we got used to seeing on the Layonara forums before you were banned and was part of the reason you were banned. Please find something else to do.

Quote: 
The highest level PC on the server is 26 or something.

Edited By DMRage on 06/09/05 16:23

Edited By Klaugraquene on 06/09/05 16:20

Quote: Posted 06/09/05 16:20:46 (GMT) by austicke

Heh, it's always fun to see the trolls come out when a new profile is posted. With the size of NWN's player-base, it's inevitable that any sufficiently popular PW is going to attract some disgruntled players.

I never played Layonara and hadn't heard about it I read the interview yesterday, but it certainly sounds like it's a thriving community with admins and players who truly care about it.

It's kind of healthy in a way for someone to come out with a flame -- it shows that people have strong feelings about the world (for good or ill). I'd be more worried if no one commented at all.

Edited By DMRage on 06/09/05 16:37