kaltrip.org

Since all proper NWN servers have a forum so that players can complain about lag and the lack of ponies, I thought I'd better set this up.

I've played NWN pretty much since it came out and was there during the glory days of the AW Path of Ascension servers. I can remember times when three servers were full and I was hitting my head on my keyboard waiting for a slot to become free so that I could log back onto my character during a Palace or Abyss run after one too many AoE spells crashed out whatever earlier, buggy release of NWN I was running at the time. For reasons I still don't fully understand the AW Clan decided to pull the plug on their servers and the player base went their separate ways; some onto different games such as World of Warcraft, others to one of the many other NWN servers including PoA offshoots like Higher Ground.

I continued to play NWN on various servers, from hardcore action and PvP to others where the emphasis was on role playing, but I always had a hankering to play the original PoA module again. Recently an attempt was made to resurrect it on another server, and I tried to push things along and get a few of the old gang to get involved again. Unfortunately the server seems to only appear intermittently which isn't really what I had in mind, and so I decided to set up my own server on a slightly more solid foundation. I'm lucky in that one of the perks of my job is that I get to have a server hosted in a commercial data center with backup power and cooling and all those good things. I also don't have to pay for bandwidth and since the facility has multiple gigabit connections to a major Internet Exchange point, that means I have as much connectivity as my server can handle. The server is running Debian Linux and is dedicated to serving NWN 24/7. If it ever gets enough use to need more power, then that's a great excuse for an upgrade. Basically I'm saying I'm here for the long haul and have enough resources to make good on my intentions.

The AW PoA mod was written by the head of the AW Clan called Trespasser. Considering how early on in NWN's history his module first appeared it's amazing how many things he got right first time. Although I've played on many servers that use epic levels and, in the case of Higher Ground, even go beyond level 40, I still prefer worlds where the highest level a character can be is 20. I know many other people also feel that way and so I've no intention of making any changes other than maybe a few cosmetic changes like adding dyes. I also think that the PoA module can pretty much run itself without too much DM interference. Personally I do not like it when a player new to a server is lavished with gifts and followed around by a DM doing their best puppy impressions or, even worse, going off on some power trip. I'd much rather that another player showed me the ropes and if they were kind enough, bought me some basic gear and pointed me in the right direction. So if you care to play on my server that's the way things are going to be. You will not be getting millions of gold or fancy gear, and in any case there are item restrictions in place that would stop you using it anyway. You will however find a level playing field with no favoritism shown to anyone. Any gold and gear that appears will have been earned the hard way and not magicked into existence through a DM client. If this sounds like fun then I welcome you to the server and hope to adventure with you in game. Welcome!

Great stuff, man. It's quite funny how me and my friend thought of the exact same thing like a month ago, problem is we don't have the resources to provide a 24/7 dedicated server, but you seem to be the saviour of the day The server seems a bit empty at the moment, but I guess it'll gain some playerbase with time
Have you done anything to the module/game settings so far? Because it's unimaginably hard to get a clear rest in bandit camp and boat ramp (haven't gone any further with my sorc yet). For example in road to town I tend to get like 1-2 restspawns and then I get to rest, in bandit areas it's a matter of 20+ tries and then I just run back to town to get the bloody rest I think didn't use to be that hard to rest there.
Oh and another thing - from what I've seen you haven't placed the *.2da files which come with vpoa.rar file in your override folder, at least the shops look like you didn't, for example elemental ring from tavern is restricted to 14th level, while with those 2da's it's 12th level; as far as the low/mid level items are not a big concern, there will be a problem with some of battle ranger and ancient set (the boots for example will be level 21 without those 2da's).
And by the way, you say you were there basically from the beginning of PoA, always as Kaltrip or may I know you by some other name? I used to play on AW PoA 1 for a long time, started about a month or two after NwN was released, at first my login was Chief Andy, then after the vault wipe I changed it to Jagannath, rings any bells?

Hi there and glad you found the forum!

Yes, the server is pretty low on players still though I seem to have a few regulars who unfortunately play in different time zones. I get the impression that there are maybe a few more who are waiting to see that the server stays around for a while, maybe because they've been bitten before by putting time and effort into a server that has subsequently disappeared without trace. The only way I can win that trust is by providing a solid, reliable base and waiting, which is exactly what I intend to do.

I haven't made any changes to the VPoA module though I do intend to make some very minor changes to the message sent at server join time just to point people here in case they have problems. Certainly no changes to resting difficulty. I did notice it was very hard to rest in the boat ramp but didn't have the problems you describe in the bandit camp.

About the 2da files. Yes I initially overlooked putting those into the override folder and noticed that the level usage for some items increased and that the sale prices of some items like the cloak of elvenkind and the ring of insight went up from a single gp to something that seemed more reasonable and so left things as they were for now. I did have a suspicion that that may have pushed the level restriction on some items over 20, though I checked that nothing in the tavern was over the limit. Obviously if I need to put the 2da files in place to make top end items usable then that's what's going to happen. I'm guessing all the 2da files have to be used and the lack of one or more of them couldn't be causing the problem with resting you're seeing?

Sadly I wasn't there at the very start of PoA but was around at the time when the first immortal run was being done, though I wasn't one of that select group. I was new to multiplayer at the time and the AW crowd pretty much showed me the ropes. In particular I remember learning a lot about playing casters and clerics by watching Belgarion and Reverand in action and of course I was pretty much in awe of Jag

Oh, hehe Mmm, Rev and Bel, haven't seen those two in a long while, even of the AW forum.
As for the 2da's i'm not sure they'll fix the resting problem, when I set up a server with the 2da's I still can't rest in boat ramp, it might have something to do with 1.69 patch, I updated just yesterday to be able to connect to your server and before, while running on 1.68, I think there were no resting issues. Anyways, I'm off to play a bit

Thanks for the suggestion that the resting issue might be related to the 1.69 patch. It's something I hadn't thought of and you could well be right. I remember seeing a post a log time ago, probably in the AW forums, that said that rest spawns were set to trigger much more often than they actually occurred because of a Bioware bug. Maybe 1.69 fixed that bug. I'll see if I can track it down.

Found out another new thing, don't know if its intentional or not, you always roll max hit points on level ups, I actually like it since I always used to reroll to get max hp anyway and sometimes it took "some" time Just a heads up for you to know what's going on

Yes that one at least is intentional. That setting was made an option in 1.69 and since everyone seems to re-roll for max hit points anyway I thought it would just save people some time and frustration. Thanks for passing the info on though as I'm sure there will be other things that I'm not aware of that I'll need to fix as they're discovered.

Hey there!

Firstly I'd like to say: "grats!"

Me and Jag were trying to bring vPoA back on tracks. We did the queen and we were about to do the Abyss run, when we found some info about your place
Dunno if you remember me, I spent year or year and a half on AW PoA 1(Trespasser did good job). To be honest I remember only few of our companions...
I have to say that I were thinking of putting PoA back on the internet again as a dedicated server but it takes some time and money. Now I am very grateful that PoA dedicated server is available again, I missed it...missed it a lot

Hope to see more old timers on server in the future and hope to meet you also... maybe smewhere near tavern

See ya soon!

Hi Zif, and welcome!

The name does seem familiar but a lot of things from back in POA 1 days are pretty hazy.

It seems a fair few people had the same idea of getting the old module up and running around the same time. When the latest attempt ran into problems I figured it was my turn to try and do something about it, especially since I have access to decent kit and hosting facilities and am used to running Linux servers.

The only downside at the moment is that work and travel are keeping me from getting in game as much as I'd like, but hopefully that will improve in the next month.

Hey!

I don't know if you know but your server is really getting on popularity
Yesterday in the (European) evening there were 8, 9 players online... Really nice!

Great job!
Greetings