this is just sad

can someone just get this back rolling again or is "Silver Marches the Savage Frontier" Dead?

Man, I just don't know. The problems are many, and I don't think anyone has a proper solution. Players started to trickle away from Moonlight & Shadows when updates stagnated. Player requests were met with "no" too frequently, and players migrated to other servers. Later, updates became more frequent and there was a bit of renewed interest in building, but too many players had left by then. The core base stuck around for awhile. When you log into a server and see a population of 1 or 2, even if you have fond memories, it's not encouraging. So even the veterans started to trickle away, in favor of a larger player bases. Faced with the loss of nearly the entire player base, drastic (some may say desperate) measures were enacted to attract new players. The server became Silver Marches: The Savage Frontier. XP awards were raised. Gold and loot awards were boosted. Item enchantment caps were raised. All of this was technically successful--dozens of new players joined in the span of a few weeks. Unfortunately, it was TOO easy. They would show up, powergame for a week, then get bored and move on. Eventually it petered out. I told myself I'd stick it out to the bitter end, but when seven straight days passed without a single person logging in... The last of my hope died.

The crux of the issue is this: People aren't buying NWN2 anymore. The overall player base of people who play NWN2 online is basically static at this point. There is no statistically significant "new blood". So any new players would have to be attracted from other servers. How? If we had an existing player base with active DMs, there would be incentive for people to log in. But without people logging in, we will not have a player base. It's a circular problem that I don't think has a solid solution.

Maxduelantus, Vermathax, and I all have copies of the server files. After Scratch telecom pulled their sponsorship, Decompile hosted the server. He had to pull the plug, and Vermathax was kind enough to host it for a few more months. I've been out of the loop for awhile, but I infer that Vermathax has pulled the plug as well.

There used to be a chain of command here, but frankly I don't care about any of that anymore. With that in mind, I'll just say this: If any veteran of Moonlight & Shadows / Silver Marches wants to try getting the server up and running again, I'll back your play. I don't have the resources to make it happen myself, and frankly I think any of the previous admins would rather see the server up and running than crack down on me for making offers I'm not "officially" qualified to make.

Understood, I won't deny I have been hunting other RP servers myself. Kind of sucks though. I was on this thing way back. My OS wouldn't run this game for a while so that's why I wasn't back on. Now that it's down and now one really has communicated on this server other than you just makes it really sad.... Oh well best of luck to ya'. I'll keep my profile on here. If things start looking up let me know... well that is if I don't happen to see any positive activity.

Aj just about sums it up. I handed over full PW and server control to Maxdualantus and Vermathax. There were problems keeping it going and then with no further word the on their part the PW no longer came back up.
Interest in NW2 had been waning since before Storm of Zehir appeared and was largely a commercial disaster.

I keep in touch with most of the older reliable builders and we may well rebuild MaS from scratch should NW3 see the light of day. I have a possible server host on standby, but again it depends on the quality of the product.

NW2 was a big disappointment for me and our original team of Soulfiend, Arolar, DW made the best of what was an unfinished toolset.

scaly

I'd just like to announce that I'm still around, after a fashion. I still have the server files, and my offer still stands. Anyone that is willing to host an NWN2 server, I'll gladly assist in a technical support role. I periodically load the server on my local machine, and go for a solo run, just to reminisce. But without the RP element, it is just heartbreaking.

ajb1978 wrote:I'd just like to announce that I'm still around, after a fashion. I still have the server files, and my offer still stands. Anyone that is willing to host an NWN2 server, I'll gladly assist in a technical support role. I periodically load the server on my local machine, and go for a solo run, just to reminisce. But without the RP element, it is just heartbreaking.

I'd love to be able to do that, but it would mean splitting the mod into different parts as they did with the original and expansions. Time for building is no longer a friend at the moment, but who knows...

scaly.