Dear players,
It has been an eventful year for the community since its opening in October 2014. Prior to this, the module was barely existent - A team was hastily scraped together by a mere handful of players who only knew one another from a previous setting. Some of us came with some experience of what it took to run a persistent world; others joined with little prior knowledge and only a willingness to help and a devotion to learn. A rough map was drawn up in Excel, a few areas made, codification ensued, and lengthy discussions happened every day between what would become a surprisingly dedicated team who were united with only one common goal in mind: a place in the NWN community where we can call home despite our individually varying RP styles.
Slowly, the team expanded to nearly eight in the height of the server's beta playtesting in November to December 2014. The server had never seen so many at opening: we recalled one evening when the server was host to 23 players, a number never before reached, and this was only the beta to start with. There would be a ton of problems and innumerous expectations of a project as ambitious as TER to come soon after, sparking many heated debates on our forums - some healthier than most. They are too many to list here, but it was clear that TER would cater more and more to a niche set of roleplayers with its own unique take on how various systems would work that took a distinct departure from most NWN persistent worlds out there. Roleplay was a honourable thing that took priority over others, and to effect this, the first thing we did was to remove the mindset that XP could only be gained from directly killing monsters, disabling traps and opening locked containers. In its place we implemented a system where the player was encouraged to explore all the places TER had to offer, receiving rewards by doing so along with overcoming challenges that dungeons would present in a less linear fashion. This system of XP would also pave the way for allowing different tactics when tackling a dungeon, and this did not have to involve direct combat. Such availability of options would become a strong feature of TER - although it would on the contrary be a point of contention amongst players, perhaps because it was too strange and too against the grain for NWN. Nonetheless, as people's lives became busier and the build-team dwindled to its original number of four, we continued to chip away at the marble, hoping that one day we would arrive at a proverbial work of art.
The NWN community has shrunk in recent years, unsurprisingly for a game that is well over a decade old, but continues to thrive thanks to what remains of those loyal to the game, and those who can appreciate its value amongst its modern-day counterparts. No toolset is as flexible as the Aurora toolset, and with the brilliant talent of the CEP custom content community NWN continues to offer endless possibilities to create from the imagination. With such a powerful and versatile tool, at TER we try to push the limits with what can be done with the engine. Granted, we may lack the variety of systems other persistent worlds have, but we take extra care to ensure that what we do implement works as a whole and isn't unnecessarily taxing on the server's performance either. TER continues to take in suggestions from its players and while not everything can or should be implemented upon advice, it doesn't mean the idea was wasted. It means that the team cares about the functionality of the setting without losing faithfulness to how we originally envisioned it to be. Visually & lorewise, TER also tries to push the envelope by making each area as fresh and detailed as possible by providing easter eggs and snippets of information for the keen observer. Journeying around the rich and, some say, forgotten, kingdom of Impiltur should be a wondrous thing in itself and we hope the sights you see are worth every step your character takes.
As we move into 2016, welcoming a new year and more opportunities for roleplay, we hope that you too can find a place to call home in TER if you haven't already. Like a leather glove, this one may take a few tries to find familiarity, but we hope that once you start to uncover all that can be offered at TER, you'll find in this place something you'll want to carry with you always.
To our players both old and new, dedicated fans and loyal supporters.
- Kilaana, on behalf of the TER team
