I helped build both NWN2 Haze and Wake. The problem with Wake is that there was too much freedom factionwise and also the team was not big enough to handle an entirely player driven world. The lack of presence by the team dwindled player numbers fast and we all know wandering an empty permadeath world with a lvl1 character is suicide.

Well, I can ramble on about Last Gate and all the things that were wrong there, but we can only learn from our mistakes :)

Yeah I also played on The "Uncharted Midlands: Last Gate" can't remember much about it TBH. I guess I didn't stop long enough for it to remain a memory.

There's so much to unpack here, but I'll just touch on several points which are purely my opinion.

There's one common theme across all failures: a stagnant Haze is a failing Haze. Even the original Haze itself failed once it became stagnant after the war which reclaimed Coffinewode. It played out its story and nothing else kept the players attention alive. *shrugs*

Haze NWN2 offered nothing new and original, other than graphics. Maybe the people who built it thought that because it's "NWN2" they can get away with doing the same old Haze; but Haze has already played out an amazing story in NWN1 that was difficult to outdo, and there was really nothing quite special about NWN2. So they got the same ol' nostalgic crowd for a while and some new players willing to check it out and certainly had some nice peaks. But the moment it became stagnant it was on its way to failure. So, it doesn't matter as much how much work you put it to build it, rather how much work you're willing to put after you build it: to change the gameworld and make it feel alive after it's built. The vision of Haze must be a dynamic one in its core; something that nearly all vanilla PW's fail to do because after they build it they get too comfortable with it. The only exception I know of was "Escape from the Underark", which had several different incarnations and rebuilds based on major events, so I give them props.

I vaguely remember Wake, but not enough to comment about it 10+ years after the fact. I'll take your word for it. Though, if anyone has their own recap about Wake I'd love to hear it.

As far as Penitence, I have some clearer memories there. It was the king of stagnation and failed on a much deeper level. It featured a well-developed gigantic city to get lost in and players were stripped of all power. In the original Haze you had captains of militias and hamlet leaders. In Penitence PC's  were the scum of the earth. Giving players power to affect change and putting them in such positions is an important part in the core of what Haze is about, if you ask me. Penitence was doomed to fail. That's not to mention the bitter and childish griefers that plagued the gameworld, which I did not condone. 

I also ran a PW called The "Uncharted Midlands: Last Gate" about 10 years ago that was supposed to be a successor to Haze. It didn't last long and you would've definitely called it a false dawn, I personally call it extremely valuable experience that I got, the lessons which I've learned from there I'm now applying in building Haze:Reborn. 

As far as your Project X, I never heard about it, but from what you're telling all I can say is that's partly why I'm not reliant on other team members. As the sole developer, if it falls short, I can't blame anyone but myself.

Lol False dawns, False dawns are the mainstay of NWN. So many hopes have foundered on false dawns. I think the main one was Haze NWN 2. Many hours of work must have gone into this PW and a shame it never lasted. As with most PW I think the NWN community demanded too much of this PW. Old Haze was big boots to fill. Wake was another doomed to failure, setting it in a survival setting allowed for too many factions to take control. (not a lover of survival worlds) Not sure what happened with Penitence apart from a few weeks I didn't really play on the server. My love and interest for designing and building NWN worlds went downhill with a project called (funnily enough) Project X that I was involved in with a few others (not mentioning any names) It really had legs and could have been amazing if those involved had decided to stick around. But as with most things I guess RL got involved and one by one they disappeared. Out of about 6 or 7 we were left with 2, me and a other. We decided to continue as we had built quite a number of areas. It finished up with a mod of over 200 areas. I still have the mod today. Best of luck creating a new PW it isn't an easy job and a lot of hard work with very little thanks.

You posted in the "announcements" section Sambuka! But it's okay, disaster has been averted-- I moved your thread to the introduction :)

We've known each other since 2003-2004 and with my short stint of role-playing as a dwarf (excuse the pun!)

I'm glad you recognized "it has some good ideas". Can you tell me about the false dawns that you've witnessed in the past? I would love to know all the details. We learn a lot more when we fail than when we succeed.