CoPaP

If you are thinking of starting a PW for CoPaP, or on your own, this is an informative thread you should read. It's a discussion among many successful (and some not so successful) PW makers, including myself.

http://nwn.bioware.com/forums/myviewtop ... 2&forum=66



Bottom line: Before creating a new PW, you need to know what you're getting into. I'm posting this because a lot of people come to CoPaP and few ever get to the point of linking. Partially, it's a waste of our time when people who are not serious enough about PW creation come to us. But then again, the nature of this organization is such that it doesn't cost us anything in reality when the worlds that join us flop before they even link because they don't understand what is involved with running a PW.

I am almost scared to ask but how many of the COPAP worlds in progress are still working on they PWs ?

Most would be my guess (:

But time being an elusive element and Real Life taking priority over anything here well it slips from you slowly but surely.

Still working here...

Visit our website to learn more about Arborea, and to keep tabs on the progress. The site may not be pretty, but we are working on it as well.



Tristan

What's a PW?



Someone
Greyhawk West - World Leader

Ithilla is going strong

Good question, how many of the WIP's are still alive. Well, let's look at it.

Arborea- Development proceeding, no equipment, thus no ETA on linking

Ithilla- Development going strong, moving towards linkup asap

Greyhawk West- Development going strong, no ETA yet on linkup

Kingdom of Cormyr- Development going, but may not link to CoPaP

Maztica- Discontinued

Moonsea- Discontinued, was once linked

Moonshae Isles- Development still going? Not sure. May not link to CoPaP.

Outlands- Development going strong. Linking as soon as VaultSTER for LINUX is reliable and the rest of CoPaP switches to new VaultSTER

Stormsea Rising- No idea. Probably discontinued.

Thay- Discontinued

The Gray Waste- Development going. Linking asap. I actually have no idea why they don't just link now.

Zorlan- Haven't heard anything from them. Probably discontinued

Miranor- Development going. no ETA on linkup. New addition to CoPaP

EA - On hold indefinitely, haven't heard much.

Abyss- Linking asap, worlds should contact them for a linkup



Then there's a TON of other worlds that have joined and fizzled before linking and never said anything about it.... Dragonia, Tolmia, Abyss (some other layer), Legion of Angels' world, and many many more.

Joining CoPaP seems to be no guarantee that your world will get online. CoPaP itself doesn't have any staff that work only for CoPaP. We're made up of the staff of individual worlds, which means that by joining us you're not going to get someone to set your world up for you. You still have to do all that work yourself, and it's a daunting task even with CoPaP. We make it *easier* to do that by giving you code and systems, but you still need the expertise to implement them yourself. We're not going to give you the coders, because we don't have them. You need to find your own labor, just like a normal independent PW would.

A lot of people fail to realize that it's impossible to do a PW with only one person, or only 5 people for that matter.

A little input here in the discussion,

Since CoPaP is as it is, many servers linked together providing a huge mesh of play areas, I actually don't see the need for every single server/module to be that big in terms of areas and content. I'd rather see (though in no position to make demands of course ) developers making smaller worlds and actually get done with it.

With that aim, maybe more could get their servers done eventhough they are few working with it.

I agree completely. I constantly counsel the people here at CoPaP to start small and go live with only a few areas that are well-done. The trap that some folks get into is they want to make sure their world is *finished* before they put it online, and these worlds never go online, because no world is finished.

Hm, isn't that somewhat contradictionary to what you wrote in the linked post above? From what I understand of that I thought you ment starting big and sketchy?

Sorry for being picky or have misunderstood you

Well, I guess you still mean: get something solid done for linking fast and fill it out once it's up.

That's the way I was thinking of doing it, altough I'd probably have problems with finding a permanent host. But you still can have dreams can't you?

Big and sketchy worked better in the old days than it does now. It can still be done though. It's not a contradiction. Avlis went live with three areas, and was built big and sketchy as it went.

Yeah you're right, just wanted to be pokey and a little annoying
Damn this is like a record for me, more then one post in a month!

Also make sure you have a person good with scripting lined up before you even start. Good scripters are worth their weight in gold. Seen several worlds fail, because they started without one, hoping to pick one up as they progresed, and never did.

Jaythespacehound Arborea's scripter, just got the DB up and running. I am in need of new EQ like Orleron posted, and in the works to get it soon (what can I say I work for an ISP, I am trying to pull some strings and get some 6 month old Dell servers that they are throwing away. Literally throwing away in the dumpster )

We decided to go what I dubbed the "Avlis Way." We will have a few zones made, some random encounters, and 2 very detailed areas. After we get linked and a player base, we will add more content as we go along. Quality over Quanity, start small and work big.

- Tristan