State of The Confederation Address

[Orleron]

I occasionally like to do this sort of thing for my own server every few months, and I thought it would be informative to do the same kind of thing for CoPaP.

Since this is the first address, let me give you some background. CoPaP seeks to do the impossible: recreate the entire D&D setting. It's a lofty goal, and a fun goal, and though we may never really get there, we can sure put together a nice conglomerate of servers while trying! That's a good thing in a way, because we will always have something to strive for. The results so far are that we have a very extensive number of areas linked together on many servers: Seven from Avlis, Two from Mystara, One from Hala, and one from Tairis'nadur. In terms of area number, there are probably around 5000 areas on Avlis alone, and other 3 or 4 thousand on the rest of the linked servers. I do not know of any other place with that many areas, and with that degree of fleshing in that number of areas!

Logistically, CoPaP is a tough nut to crack. We have many independent teams working together. Some are linked worlds, some are worlds in progress or WIP's. All of them need help and all of them are made up of human team members who have feelings and aspirations. Couple that with our relatively loose structure, and the fun never stops. Each CoPaP member world is an independent entity that agrees to follow certain guidelines in order to remain rougly compatable with the other linked worlds. This compatability is not a one-time deal. It's a constant pursuit. You cannot just make everything compatable and then rest. It unfortunately does not work like that, but rather it takes constant input to make sure things are staying compatable as new things come out.

We have a lot of experience with this and have come a long way. The prototype for CoPaP was a link between Avlis and Mythos. Some aspects of that went well, and a lot was learned in the process. The Articles of Confederation came out of that test, and today that document serves as the basis of our organization. Nevertheless, intense communication is still necessary, and of course we are all doing this for a hobby which means not everyone is always reachable. We still do what we can with what we have, and we experience a slow but steady growth.

The human factor is really the key. Many worlds apply to CoPaP for membership. Most of them get in as WIP's. Out of every 10 WIP's, however, maybe one world will actually get online, and out of every 5 worlds that get online, maybe one world will actually link. That is why you only see about 11 modules linked instead of 50. The reasons for this are that NWN is in its late stages, and that most folks never truly understand what making a PW requires, before they get into it. Still, we occasionally find some dedicated people who stick to their guns, more below.


So what about growth? Well, we've got a lot of neat things coming!

With the new version of VaultSTER there are several security improvements, and bug fixes. It just took us a while to change over to the new version because simultaneously a new version of NWNX was released too. This new version has object support, so eventually we will have ways to let you transfer your world-specific items across server lines and store them in persistent chests.

But now we are in full swing with the VaultSTER changeover and that means there are going to be some changes in the linking order of worlds, and some new worlds linking up too. Outlands is one such new world. They portray the Outlands, aka the plane of Concordant Opposition. This is the home of many portals to all the Planes, and it also houses the city of Sigil. Though Sigil will not be out at the time of linking, teleri tells me he will eventually do a Sigil there, and CoPaP will finally have a reputable Planescape setting!

Having Outlands gives us some nice ability to hook up many other planar worlds either directly to it, or to each other. Most of the planar worlds that are coming into CoPaP will link directly off of Outlands via their gate towns. Arborea, Abyss, and Hades are three worlds in progress that are an example. If we could find a server to do Baator, we'd have the complete Blood War battle field, but we definitely still have enough to play the Blood War quite nicely. So expect to see that kind of thing.

What about the planets? Currently as planets we have Avlis, Mystara, and Tairis'nadur as linked worlds, and EA, Legends of Toril, and Greyhawk west as WIP's. That's the other cool part. Planets are part of the Spelljammers scheme. This requires medieval-style/magical-style/fantasy space flight, and we have the means to do this in NWN! The first world to be coming out that does this is called Ithilla (www.ithilla.com). For all you Spelljammer fans out there, go to their website to see, and for those that want to know more, we have the Spelljamming rules posted there. Most planets in CoPaP, though likely not all of them, will be connected in this way.

I cannot say at this time which new planets will be linking up, because there are some that have fallen out of contact, but I am fairly certain at least of Ithilla (which has a planet component also), and Greyhawk West at the minimum.


So, even though I don't know exactly how long it's going to take, I do know that at the minimum we'll be able to bring you quite a few planes to adventure on, along with at least one classic world setting!


Thanks for reading...

[Ulversial]

*cheers* Multiverse domination, here I come!