I've Come Full Circle!

I hope the RPG does not end up suffering from diminished resources (time, money, resources, creativity,etc.) because of the online project. A drop in quality for the RPG will be crippling for the game and Paizo. I think it will be a fine line,even though you have formed a new company.

Good luck!

We're going to be very, very, very, very, very careful about this. One of the reasons we set this up as a completely different company is so we do not drain resources from our tabletop projects, which are doing great.

Wolfthulhu wrote:

BUT, lets not be all derogatory towards those who have a somewhat different playstyle preference. From what I've read they will be looking for some balance, weighted a bit on the sandboxy side.

Hear, hear. Since I'm pretty much the poster child, I suspect, for the "carebear" type of player in an MMO... that term tends to raise my hackles.

Personally, I'm hoping there'll be draws for BOTH types of MMO players in this game.

Yeah, I really want to work 50 or 60 hours a week, and finally get to play this thing two months after it comes out, so I can get jumped by a pack of 12 year olds with 35th level characters who have been up until 4 am all f&!*ing summer farming dire rats.

Hey, can we have headsets too? A bunch of little kids screaming "NOOOOOOB!" really is awesome.

I gotcher Carebear hangin,......ragga fragga....

Odd question. (TLDR version: does Paizo intend to retain control over this product, its design and development, it's operation, and its support?)

I've seen behind the curtain over years worth of MMO development. Is the role of Goblinworks that of a development house or that of a publisher, or both?

The context of this question is really about that "publisher" word. I get it that Paizo is a content-creator as well as a publisher with regards to written material. I'm very... concerned... regarding the role of a publisher in this particular title.

In my NDA-laden experience, publishers (of MMORPGs) are dangerous, dangerous organizations. Development houses can be 95% complete on a product and due to turnover in their publisher's staff, forced to redesign the goals, structure, code, assets, and features of the product. There is a reason why so many games end up years late. Hint: it's usually not the coders or the artists.

It's the suits that screw this stuff up.

So I'm asking. I'm begging. Please tell me this "click her to be an investor" thing stands absolutely no risk of this project falling under the control of an outside publisher party.

Paizo's role is is twofold. We're the licensor, which means we ultimately have approval on how our intellectual property can be used. We also have ownership, and that means we have a voice on how Goblinworks is set up and run. Outside investors in Goblinworks will not constitute a majority.

James Jacobs wrote:

Wolfthulhu wrote:

BUT, lets not be all derogatory towards those who have a somewhat different playstyle preference. From what I've read they will be looking for some balance, weighted a bit on the sandboxy side.

Hear, hear. Since I'm pretty much the poster child, I suspect, for the "carebear" type of player in an MMO... that term tends to raise my hackles.

Personally, I'm hoping there'll be draws for BOTH types of MMO players in this game.

Yeah, I really want to work 50 or 60 hours a week, and finally get to play this thing two months after it comes out, so I can get jumped by a pack of 12 year olds with 35th level characters who have been up until 4 am all f!**ing summer farming dire rats.

Hey, can we have headsets too? A bunch of little kids screaming "NOOOOOOB!" really is awesome.

I gotcher Carebear hangin,......ragga fragga....

Lol - fortunately according to the FAQ, there will be no levels. Character advancement will be skill-based, not level-based.

If you make the assumption that a man in his thirties can "Sqweeeee" in a high pitched voice that makes a dog's ears stand up... I just Sqweeeee'd :)

Which was naturally followed by a long list of excited, random, four letter expletives.

This is cool guys, can't wait to follow along and see how it comes along.

Here's some needed to ask questions for

Goblinworks and the MMO Game

1a) Are you going to build the game from scratch (engine and all) or license a game engine from a game company?

1b) If you do license one, which one and why?

1c) Will the character models all be static types or Mesh morph types?

1d) Will character clothing be part of the character meshes, or will they overlay the character meshes?

1e) If made from scratch what programming languages do you plan to program in?

2) While looking for investors, are you going to make sure they (investors or Publishers) can not grab the IP?

3) Do you have a Game Design Document (it's a living document that lists the basics of the game and what it contains, features and requires) to at least show investors that you can start on the game.

1) Our intent is to license an existing engine, and we have identified specific possibilities, but we're not able to go into further details on that at this time.

2) Goblinworks is licensing the Pathfinder IP from Paizo; they gain no ownership of it.

3) We have a design document and a business plan to present to qualified investors.

SQUEEEEEEE!!!!!

You've just made my year, Paizo!

What makes you think that a single player RPG would see more financial success than an MMORPG?

I'm not an expert in the business, but can you name a MMO that made money recently?

DDO? Don't think so.
Warhammer? Don't think so.
Age of Conan? Don't think so.
DC Universe?...

Star Wars might fare well because of the fan base. I may be wrong: as stated, I'm no expert.

The thing I know though, is that in my "extended entourage" (a small sample of roughly a 100 friends and acquaintances), people are deserting MMOs and reminesce about the good old times playing Baldur's Gate, Icewind Dale, and Neverwinter Nights.

personnaly, I'd be more excited if it was a game à la Dungeon Hack than a MMO.

But as it's been said numeroulsy here: to each his own.

Fred

Paizo's role is is twofold. We're the licensor, which means we ultimately have approval on how our intellectual property can be used. We also have ownership, and that means we have a voice on how Goblinworks is set up and run. Outside investors in Goblinworks will not constitute a majority.

Thanks for the info Vic. I've seen oh... let's say a flight-simulator MMORPG about 80% done run out of money, get funded by a publisher/investor white knight who promised self-direction. Then over a short time period, they started making minor demands followed by major demands. Joystick? No, no, that's got a high hardware entry-cost. Keyboard and mouse only. Factions with roleplay differences that relate to equipment capabilities? No, no, that's hard to balance. Make all the planes, engines, and guns identical except shape and color. An economy where (some) players (can) make the equipment and planes? No, no, that's too much to do. PvP only and always.

In the end it became a point & click FPS with planes. That got axed. After being rewritten twice. This, after more than 200,000 beta signup requests... all of which the publisher LOST.

So while I think this is all cool, I'm inherently nervous. Reassured by your answers, but nervous.

I'm really excited to see what becomes of this! Wish I had enough scratch laying around to invest...but I don't. I hope that when beta testing comes about I have time and opportunity to make a meaningful contribution. I think all the concerns and comments preceding my post are what makes Paizo great...the fan base that gives a crap.

Good Luck with all of the 'stuff'. Can't wait to see how this unfolds!

I have begun to consider how I will be playing this. My wife and I have already gone over the FAQ over at GoblinWorks.

I am excited beyond belief, even karate chopped my desk in glee.

Thanks for this Paizo, it made my night.

Vic Wertz wrote:

Paizo's role is is twofold. We're the licensor, which means we ultimately have approval on how our intellectual property can be used. We also have ownership, and that means we have a voice on how Goblinworks is set up and run. Outside investors in Goblinworks will not constitute a majority.

Thanks for the info Vic. I've seen oh... let's say a flight-simulator MMORPG about 80% done run out of money, get funded by a publisher/investor white knight who promised self-direction. Then over a short time period, they started making minor demands followed by major demands. Joystick? No, no, that's got a high hardware entry-cost. Keyboard and mouse only. Factions with roleplay differences that relate to equipment capabilities? No, no, that's hard to balance. Make all the planes, engines, and guns identical except shape and color. An economy where (some) players (can) make the equipment and planes? No, no, that's too much to do. PvP only and always.

In the end it became a point & click FPS with planes. That got axed. After being rewritten twice. This, after more than 200,000 beta signup requests... all of which the publisher LOST.

So while I think this is all cool, I'm inherently nervous. Reassured by your answers, but nervous.

Let me go a bit further and talk about Paizo's licensing strategy as a whole, using our relationship with WizKids as an example. We don't know how to make prepainted plastic minis, but WizKids does. We do understand our world, our game, and our audience, though, and by combining our knowledge with WizKids' skill set, we're able to make minis better than either of us could do on our own. We don't tell them what plasticizer they should be using, but we do tell them that the Rise of the Runelords minis set needs a bunch of nasty ogres, and they'll tell us how many larges we can put in the set without messing up distribution or affecting the price point. It's a cooperative process that lets us each get on with what we're best at.

That's the same approach we'll be bringing to Goblinworks. Paizo doesn't have the knowledge necessary to develop an MMO, but Goblinworks will be selecting their hires for that experience. We'll work with them to develop the vision of Pathfinder Online, but we'll leave the implementation to them.

As a long time player of Evercrack, World of Warcrack,Warcrack the Reckoning online,Crack City of Heroes, Age of Concrack I hope that you can do it better than those that came before you because all that is released by game companies making MMO's are re skinned clones that offer nothing but repetitive gameplay designed on keeping players paying monthly subscription fees. I havent played a MMO in over a year now and unless PFO is something new and special I doubt I will play, I have already said no to the new Star wars game as it basically does nothing new for the MMO genre.

So 160+ posts in less than 8 hours = TL; DR.

Lisa and whoever else, I wish you luck in this endeavor (though I dont play MMOs myself), if this game is half as good as the rpg, itll be fantastic.

I understand the reasoning behind the founding of a separate company; so that the games do not (hopefully) bleed over and one suffer so the other can prosper.

To be brutally honest though, if you guys pushing into the MMO world makes the Pathfinder RPG line (and PFS) suffer because resources are given to the other company to use, Id rather not see you do an MMO at all.

Seriously though, good luck.

Wow, I'm really surprised. It's very ambitious, especially doing a world that is influenced by the players. This concept is very hard to do in an MMO.

The announcement is also a little surprising. I came to PF to get away from computer RPGs. :)

Having said that, I'd probably give it a try since it will be in 3-5 years.

Star Wars might fare well because of the fan base. I may be wrong: as stated, I'm no expert.

In an interview with Bioware, in an answer to the usual "how will you compete with WoW", Bioware basically said (and I'm widely paraphrasing):

At something like 100,000 players they pay the game off in like 3 or 4 years, at 500,000 they are widely successful and at 1.5Mil they are printing their own money.

Considering over 1 million beta codes went out this week for the next upcoming beta weekend, I don't think they'll have any problem.

MMO's make ALOT of money.

Thanks for all the great comments in this thread! I'm reading each and every one and a lot of other threads as well.

There have been a lot of questions asked, and I wanted to give you all some background on how we'll be handling communications with the community going forward.

This is a quote from the business plan:

"UNDERPROMISE AND OVERDELIVER

Too many video game projects create a false understanding in the minds of their customers of the game’s design goals and ultimate deliverable by talking about what could be instead of what will be for certain. After players have pictured an ideal in their mind, they can be confronted with a depressing reality when the actual product doesn’t live up to their expectations—and then the game becomes a source of complaints and negativity.

When in doubt, err on the side of silence."

We're going to have a very progressive and open design process with the game and we're going to share a lot of material with the community so you can provide feedback and suggestions. But we're only going to talk about things we have a very high confidence will actually be in the game when it launches or that we can put a firm release date on for an update once we're live.

Right now we're doing 3 very important things: We're finalizing our middleware (the tools that we'll use to build the game and its servers), we're building a team of rockstars to develop the game, and we're putting our funding together so that we won't have to worry about money (excessively) while we build the game.

That first decision will drive a whole lot of other more substantial responses. Until we have a signed contract with our middleware vendor we're not going to talk too much about technology. We have several options on the table and each has its own unique aspects.

For that reason we're not able to say much about the game itself beyond what's on the Goblinworks website. This issue will be finalized fairly quickly and then we'll have a lot more to say about the technology and how the game development will progress.

RyanD

I waited over 8 hours for what I hoped to be a Beastairy 3 preview and this all I get. I hate online games as much as James Jacobs hates musicals. I am too angry to say anything else right now.

So 160+ posts in less than 8 hours = TL; DR.

Lisa and whoever else, I wish you luck in this endeavor (though I dont play MMOs myself), if this game is half as good as the rpg, itll be fantastic.

I understand the reasoning behind the founding of a separate company; so that the games do not (hopefully) bleed over and one suffer so the other can prosper.

To be brutally honest though, if you guys pushing into the MMO world makes the Pathfinder RPG line (and PFS) suffer because resources are given to the other company to use, Id rather not see you do an MMO at all.

Seriously though, good luck.

They've stated several times that they're being VERY careful not to let that happen. So we can be optimistic and look at the other side of the coin - a successful Pathfinder MMO could (hopefully) bleed over and make the tabletop games even more so.

If you make the assumption that a man in his thirties can "Sqweeeee" in a high pitched voice that makes a dog's ears stand up... I just Sqweeeee'd :)

Which was naturally followed by a long list of excited, random, four letter expletives.

This is cool guys, can't wait to follow along and see how it comes along.

Well... apparently a man in his 50s can do it too :) I've played computer games since the beginning (along with D&D). I've been tempted by a few MMOs but never like this. I am really looking forward to seeing how this goes and trying to find the time to play it. Exciting news indeed.

I waited over 8 hours for what I hoped to be a Beastairy 3 preview and this all I get. I hate online games as much as James Jacobs hates musicals. I am too angry to say anything else right now.

Luckily, the world does revolve around you! I’m sure that Paizo will be issuing a personal apology, retracting their big announcement and be putting up a Bestiary 3 preview asap.

I waited over 8 hours for what I hoped to be a Beastairy 3 preview and this all I get. I hate online games as much as James Jacobs hates musicals. I am too angry to say anything else right now.

Although I hate musicals, I am forced to admit that they're popular. They win lots of oscars too, it seems.

Meh. I would prefer something different but who knows I will keep an eye on it.

Now to win millions invest just because.

This is exciting news, and I'm very excited for Lisa, Ryan and all the Paizo/Goblinworks folks that are a part of this! I'll be following along with the development and tossing in my 2 cents, when asked. ;p

Two positive things stand out to me, so far.

1) Like the development of PFRPG, I hope you intend to include the players (us) throughout the process. I don't think I've ever seen that before with other MMOs, and I think its a great way to build interest and personal (not monetary) investment in the game from the fanbase.

2) The sandbox vs theme park divide is key... I think the market for players of the Elder Scrolls variety game (vs the WOW/etc endgamers), is something you can tap into without necessarily having to compete directly with big name MMOs. To me, this would draw a more mature/patient audience.

Best of luck for Goblinworks! There's a long road ahead, but they journey is the key!

Oh!

And the game MUST have a nasty Cthulhu/Tyrannosaur-hybrid boss monster named *JJ* or some such!

;p

Very interesting news. I hope it is successful.

To be brutally honest though, if you guys pushing into the MMO world makes the Pathfinder RPG line (and PFS) suffer because resources are given to the other company to use, Id rather not see you do an MMO at all.

We all agree on this, so I don't think you should be too concerned about it. It's one reason why we've set this up as a separate company with a separate staff.

This is very exciting news, and we're thrilled to finally get to share it with you! We plan to monitor this thread throughout the day and the coming weeks, so let us know what you think!

Sorry for the wall of text. I realize my voice doesn't count for much, but I do play MMOs, and this is a game I'd like to see do well, since I do happen to be in the market for a new MMO. As such, I'd like to offer a list of things I'd like to see:

First, take as long as you need to get the game done right. Please don't rush it out the door before its ready because people are getting antsy to see a return. Seriously, if you do it well, I know I'm not the only person who would be willing to pay to play Pathfinder Online. DDO and City of Heroes didn't fail in the pay-to-play arena because WoW is a giant, they failed because they're not fun enough to have to pay for(and look bad to boot).
Second, you guys have given Pathfinder a distinctive somewhat cartoony art style. For the love of all that is holy, play up to that while still keeping the graphics requirements low. You don't need pretty and realistic. You're not getting your bread and butter on this from the guys with the High End gaming machines. To justify spending up to $15 a month on a game, it has to look good AND play well. Realistic is a resource hog. Better to be cartoony.
Third, don't neglect your solo players. Let's face it. A lot of the people who will make up the player base are anti-social. If you have to group to play, you're losing players. Besides, if you have to group, that means you have to schedule with others, which means we can't play as much, and if I can't play my favorite character at 3 am on a Tuesday morning when I suddenly get the urge because there's nothing one can do solo, I don't see much reason to bother paying to play. This also means that you need to limit the amount of instancing(quests are far more fun, even if they are all "Go to point A, Pick up the Doohicky B, and kill Mob C" or "Kill 80 Mobs"). I don't mind sitting around waiting on respawns if it means I don't have to run "Lair of BBEG" a dozen times just to level. Also, please resist the urge to link every last quest in a zone. The cool part about Old WoW was that you could skip quests. Give us that option.
Fourth, I realize you're going to be pressured to do so b/c of the PvP community's obsession with balance, but keep the classes distinct and separate. Make sure the classes do not all play exactly the same way(and don't all have the same abilities). This ensures that the PvE players will keep coming back, if only to try out the various classes as alts. Also, don't nerf PvE for PvP, just make it function differently.
As a personal preference, please keep the wide open spaces to a minimum. Deserts and rolling plains rarely look good on most MMOs and as someone who learned to play MMOs on PvP servers, they don't give very many options for hiding and escaping.

I waited over 8 hours for what I hoped to be a Beastairy 3 preview and this all I get. I hate online games as much as James Jacobs hates musicals. I am too angry to say anything else right now.

LOL. Chill, baby. We got your Bestiary 3 preview coming up very shortly.

I just broke out of the MMO clutch in favor of getting back into tabletop RPGs and then they go and do this. Not really excited.

A heads-up:

www.goblinworks.com is directing to www.paizo.com instead of goblinworks.com.

I know because I was writing a post about it on another website and I test my links before posting. Yes, I still use the www.

Wow! Unexpected announcement! Like... Spanish Inquisition unexpected.
I was not anticipating a reveal nearly this grandiose. Wishing you guys veritable truckloads of success in this!

Heh. What was all that about 4E being a tabletop MMO?

Azure_Zero wrote:

Here's some needed to ask questions for

Goblinworks and the MMO Game

1a) Are you going to build the game from scratch (engine and all) or license a game engine from a game company?

1b) If you do license one, which one and why?

1c) Will the character models all be static types or Mesh morph types?

1d) Will character clothing be part of the character meshes, or will they overlay the character meshes?

1e) If made from scratch what programming languages do you plan to program in?

2) While looking for investors, are you going to make sure they (investors or Publishers) can not grab the IP?

3) Do you have a Game Design Document (it's a living document that lists the basics of the game and what it contains, features and requires) to at least show investors that you can start on the game.

1) Our intent is to license an existing engine, and we have identified specific possibilities, but we're not able to go into further details on that at this time.

2) Goblinworks is licensing the Pathfinder IP from Paizo; they gain no ownership of it.

3) We have a design document and a business plan to present to qualified investors.

Thanks for answering my questions Vic

As A Game Development Student (Nearly Graduated)
My curiousity took over with how Paizo would make the game.

I hereby give Paizo/Goblinworks permission to place the Aberzombie as a hidden boss monster easter egg thing in the game. That may be the closest I'm ever able to get to it.

A heads-up:

www.goblinworks.com is directing to www.paizo.com instead of goblinworks.com.

I know because I was writing a post about it on another website and I test my links before posting. Yes, I still use the www.

I just let gary know and he will fixify tomorrow morning. In the meantime, https://goblinworks.com/ will link to it.

Wolf Munroe wrote:

A heads-up:

www.goblinworks.com is directing to www.paizo.com instead of goblinworks.com.

I know because I was writing a post about it on another website and I test my links before posting. Yes, I still use the www.

I just let gary know and he will fixify tomorrow morning. In the meantime, https://goblinworks.com/ will link to it.

I'm honestly not sure why it's https, either - that may have been oversight. At least the security cert has propagated now - when I first accessed the site this afternoon it was still invalid.

please for the love of god be Mac compatible!

please for the love of god be Mac compatible!

Per the Goblinworks FAQ:

What platforms are the game being developed for?

The game engine we intend to use is currently PC only. A Mac OS X version of the engine is in development, but we can't guarantee that it will be ready for the launch of Pathfinder Online.

Scott Betts wrote:

What makes you think that a single player RPG would see more financial success than an MMORPG?

I'm not an expert in the business, but can you name a MMO that made money recently?

DDO? Don't think so.
Warhammer? Don't think so.
Age of Conan? Don't think so.
DC Universe?...

Don't know about those others, but Age of Conan is indeed making money these days, thanks to several years of hard work of improving the game, and their recent switch over to a hybrid business model this year.

http://www.funcom.com/news/over_300000_players_join_age_of_conan_unchained_ in_first_month

Scott Betts wrote:

What makes you think that a single player RPG would see more financial success than an MMORPG?

I'm not an expert in the business, but can you name a MMO that made money recently?

DDO? Don't think so.
Warhammer? Don't think so.
Age of Conan? Don't think so.
DC Universe?...

Star Wars might fare well because of the fan base. I may be wrong: as stated, I'm no expert.

The thing I know though, is that in my "extended entourage" (a small sample of roughly a 100 friends and acquaintances), people are deserting MMOs and reminesce about the good old times playing Baldur's Gate, Icewind Dale, and Neverwinter Nights.

personnaly, I'd be more excited if it was a game à la Dungeon Hack than a MMO.

But as it's been said numeroulsy here: to each his own.

Fred

Actually, other than DC Universe Online (which broke even) all of those titles made money. They just didn't have the staying power to hang with the WoW juggernaut, and are all now Free-To-Play models of one sort or another.

The thing about an MMO that these developers seem to forget (and I hope you hear this, Paizo, please) is that however much creative effort, energy, and capital you end up investing into the initial game at launch, unless you come prepared to spend double or triple the creative effort, energy, and capital into planned future content before you even release the game you are dead in the water before you get started.

As a long time player of Evercrack, World of Warcrack,Warcrack the Reckoning online,Crack City of Heroes, Age of Concrack ...

Ahem! It's "City of Heroin."

Now I gotta go back to grinding incarnate trials...

Drowning in trepidation over here. I would love to see this come out and be totally awesome, but I can also see this coming out and failing within a few months. I really hope it's the former.

I was hoping to see an announcement for Pathfinder-themed coloring books.

Back to waiting, it seems.

-Skeld

If it was more like the Temple of elemental evil game and less like a MMO, that would be awesome, I really like turned base RPG style over MMO.

I'm already selling organs to pay for my Pathfinder habit so I'll be doubling harvest rates to fund this new fix.

I really like what I've read on the FAQ. Finally, a skill-based fantasy MMO built on an IP I WANT to play. I'm also extremely happy that you are NOT going to try and replicate a table-top experience but are designing Pathfinder Online to work within the paradigm of MMOs. Keep the flavor and make the mechanics unique!

I'd like to see EVE-style PVP with "Empire" areas and "Lawless" areas as opposed to "Battlegrounds" type PVP. It allows me to make the choice of whether to carebear it in civilization or take the risk and go play in the woods. Give me choices! Let me make the decisions.

Please don't make it cartoony. It doesn't have to be ultra-realistic but I do want to be rewarded for investing a good rig. Design it for the middle-of-the-road and those of us with high end machines can just crank everything to 11. I think DDO did a good job with that.

Solo play is a must. Sometimes I just don't feeling like dealing with people. Unless I'm killing them...

Just license CCP's Carbon engine. It looks SOOOOOOO SEXSEH!

SM

Sara Marie wrote:

Wolf Munroe wrote:

A heads-up:

www.goblinworks.com is directing to www.paizo.com instead of goblinworks.com.

I know because I was writing a post about it on another website and I test my links before posting. Yes, I still use the www.

I just let gary know and he will fixify tomorrow morning. In the meantime, https://goblinworks.com/ will link to it.

I'm honestly not sure why it's https, either - that may have been oversight. At least the security cert has propagated now - when I first accessed the site this afternoon it was still invalid.

It is not an oversight. It's secure to protect the email addresses people use to sign up for Goblinworks updates using the widget to the right of the page.

I'm very excited and hope they do an excellant job with the mmo. WOW does not do it for me. DDO also. So here hoping my expectations are meet. Another bonus now the 4E detracters can no longer point to 4e and go "they turned 4E into an MMO" when it's closest competitor has done the same. Kind of hypocritical imo.

we're building a team of rockstars to develop the game

The Prince of Darkness has some experience with MMOs...;)

Well....hmmm....good luck with this endevour. MMO's are not for me and I will sadly pass on this venture.