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Majuba wrote:
This should totally be called Pathfinder Unearthed.

Pathfinder should have been called D&D Unearthed.

As in... "dug back up out of the grave and given new life".


Hell Mel wrote:
As far as I've seen EVE Online is the absolute gold standard as far as character creation goes (Which is totally wasted because you're in a spaceship 100% of the time), I'd advise looking it up, there's quite a lot done correctly there.

Let's not forget Elder Scrolls (Oblivion and Skyrim of course).


I'm in the northern part of Dallas.


2 people marked this as a favorite.

I have never seen any game ever made in which some segment of the population didn't complain loudly and emphatically that some aspect / class was "overpowered". Usually while simultaneously insisting that their own pet class should receive outrageous buffs.

Rouges are overpowdered.

And by this I mean that people get too caught up in their own desires and forget to enjoy the experience for what it is. Only you can decide to enjoy your experiences. It does not really matter what the state of the game is.


Bringslite wrote:
"Ladies! Your attention please!"

You have my attention, now would you kindly form a queue and have your credentials ready for presentation...


How will Divinations work, as a school? Scrying? Premonition? Commune? Augury? Detect Thoughts? Track Ship, Locate Object, Blood Biography, Spherescry? Contact Other Plane, Telepathic Bond, Legend Lore / Vision, Foresight? Don't tell me there just won't be a school of Divination, that would just be silly. Don't insult us by just putting in True Sight and Detect Magic and calling it a day, either. Think of the intrigue and drama players could get into with the information warfare between Diviners and Illusionists! In-depth information about planned design concerning the non-combat spells, in general.

Utility spells, powers and such: what assurances can you give us that PFO won't be just EVE with swords and horses? Tell us about what non-combat activities our characters will be capable of -- transcendence into lichdom? Personal lair design and fortification? Ownership / control of slaves / constructs / undead? What about animal companions, mounts, familiars...? Can we scribe Sigil spells? Create Teleportation Circles? How will Magic Circle vs. Alignment work? Un/Hallow and Consecrate / Desecrate? Antilife Shell, Antipathy / Sympathy? How will Invisibility work? How will cantrips like Message, Prestidigitation, Arcane Mark, Spark and Mage Hand work?

What about "fun" spells like Youthful Appearance, Vocal Alteration, Animate Rope / Object, Ventriloquism, Lock Gaze, Unseen Servant, Hold Portal and Alarm...?

Telekinesis? Wall of Force/Ice/Stone/Fire/Wind? Flesh to Stone? Clone? Time Stop? Rock to Mud to Rock? Soften Earth, Warp Wood...? Will we see these sorts of spells in play that aren't just "push button, deal damage"?

Reincarnation? Control Weather? Dare I ask -- Wish and Miracle?? What about Contingencies and Permanency? How will Flight be handled? And Wild Shape? Tell us those things are in PFO, surely?

There are some Necromancy spells (besides the obvious Animate Dead-type) that leave questions: like Cursed Earth, Clone, Orb of the Void (how would you ever steer it?), Curse, Astral Projection, Familiar Melding, Magic Jar / Skinsend and Blindness / Deafness -- how will those be handled?

How will Illusions work? Silent Image? Veil and False Image? How will Disguise Self interact with Assassins? Dream, Mirage Arcana, Nightmare?? Simulacrum?

How will Enchantments interact with PCs? If I cast Dominate Person on a PC, what happens? Charm Person? Suggestion and Hypnotism?

How will Appraise work? Bluff, Diplomacy and Intimidate? What about the Knowledge skills -- how will that work? And Spellcraft, how will that work, especially in PvP? Players would be able to just remember what spell animations look like and never need to invest in such a skill -- and Wizards have precious little else besides Knowledge and Spellcraft, in terms of skills.

Will we see expensive material components for spells? How does Metamagic currently work?

Will character Traits be in the game? How will they work, how would characters gain them?

How will Wands and Staffs be handled? Can players Craft their own Staffs and just keep adding Spells to it? Wouldn't that break the Spellbook mechanic? Would it be a bad thing if it did, considering how horribly unsatisfying the currently proposed Spellbook and limited slots mechanics are?

Tell us PFO won't be just EVE with swords and arrows. We already have EVE. Tell us why we should bother playing PFO and why it's worthy to be called Pathfinder.


Rafkin wrote:
Bill Gates can afford a nuclear bomb, doesn't mean he is allowed to own one.

The tragedy:

Given his reputation, I don't believe he would even want to own one -- and this make him the very sort of person who should.

But doesn't.


Nightdrifter wrote:

At least it's not 1st edition where alignments had their own language.

"Anyone know what this creature is saying?"

"No, sorry. I only speak Common, Elven and Chaotic Neutral."

Game design, as a discipline of knowledge, has improved and grown more sophisticated with time. As is usual for most areas of human endeavor.


Ace-of-Spades wrote:
Call me crazy, but this sounds like it may be one of the coolest/best alignment systems I've seen yet.

That's not saying much since Alignment, as a game mechanic, has always been absolutely horrible.


DeciusBrutus wrote:
Warfare isn't just about the quality of the players fighting the battles, it's also about the ability of the social group to provide and replace equipment.

Infrastructure? In my sandy box?! Is it more likely than I think?


KarlBob wrote:

d20 - 5% chance of each number from 1 to 20.

3d6 - 16.7% chance of each number from 1 to 6 on each of the three dice. Rolling three dice and adding them changes the probabilities of rolling each number from 3 to 18, as opposed to "rolling a 16 sided die" and adding 2. The net effect is a higher chance to roll numbers in the middle of the spread and a lower chance to roll very high or very low (and no chance to roll 1, 2, 19, or 20, of course).

Yes. It's explained very well in Unearthed Arcana.

The problem was others' perception that crits can only happen on a 20 and that 3d6 averages higher than 1d20. I distinctly remember someone saying we'd all be rolling 15s all the time... The problem was a failure of education in math. Some people, though, prefer the less arbitrary bell over the flat distributions offered by single dice.

But my original reason for suggesting it is that I'm certain it's much more difficult to influence the roll of three dice than it is to do the same for a single die. A couple of birds with ... three stones. I admit, it was a sly attempt at manipulation, but with a cheater and superstitious ignoramuses at the table, whatdyagonnado?


In the teamspeak session tonight, I dropped a link I think is relevant to any discussion about alignment.


Had a player at my tabletop group consistently roll very high (four, count them, four! 18s, and two 17s during character creation). Literally half his rolls threatened crits. It was attributed to superstition when, in fact, he was simply adept at manipulating how his dice fell. Those who weren't gullible fools just went along with it because we preferred that he participate than be down a man.

The DM was still a gullible fool, though.

All sorts of obnoxious baloney was thrown when I suggested we look into using 3d6 instead of a single d20. Phrases like "but then you can't nat 20!" and "what about crits?!" and "but then you'd roll higher, and we like it when it's random!" were uttered. I can only wish I were paraphrasing. The worst was that people got emotional about it. It threatened something deeper than just gaming, I'm certain of it.


KarlBob wrote:

Edit 2: On the other hand, city stats from the Book of the River Kingdoms:

Artume: humanoid (human 86%, gnome 7%, half-elf 4%, half-orc 2%, other 1%)
Novoboro: humanoid (human 98%, half-elf 2%)
Daggermark: humanoid (human 96%, dwarf 1%, other 3%)
Gralton: humanoid (human 90%, halfling 7%, half-elf 2%, other 1%)
Maashinelle: humanoid (human 75%, half-elf 11%, gnome 8%, elf 5%, other 1%)
Fort Liberthane: humanoid (human 95%, halfling 4%, other 1%)
Mivon: humanoid (human 86%, dwarf 6%, elf 6%, gnome 2%)
Outsea: humanoid and monstrous (merfolk 34%, sahuagin 36%, human 20%, elf 5%, other 5%)
Pitax: humanoid (human 90%, halfling 4%, elf 3%, other 3%)
Deadbridge: humanoid (human 90%, halfling 6%, gnome 2%, elf 1%, other 1%)
Riverton: humanoid (human 88%, half-elf 9%, other 3%)
Sevenarches: humanoid (human 88%, fey 5%, gnome 4%, halfling 2%, other 1%)
Avendale: humanoid (human 89%, halfling 9%, other 2%)
Tymon: humanoid (human 80%, half-orc 12%, other 8%)
Uringen: Part A: humanoid (human 85%, half-elf 9%, gnome 5%, other 1%)
Uringen: Part B: humanoid (human 85%, half-elf 12%, gnome 2%, other 1%)
And from Thornkeep:
Thornkeep: (484 humans, 42 half-elves, 27 halflings, 19 goblins, 12 elves, 11 half-orcs, 8 gnomes, 7 dwarves, 20 other)

You can't have heroic / special PCs without making them special somehow. Demographics of NPCs, by definition, isn't relevant to the player characters, in terms of what characters players can or should create.


Golarion was specifically designed as a "kitchen sink" setting. I do find it rather intensely amusing the notion that Golarion has a specific, distinct, narrow flavor or content. It was designed to allow and include everything and anything.

Objections about "that's not what goes on in my Golarion!" are just silly on the face of it.


Bluddwolf wrote:
Aunt Tony wrote:
Smaller weapons are more easily hidden. Would make more sense for larger, more-unwieldy weapons to be more legally accepted.

In theory this would make sense, but I have had real world experience of the exact opposite.

One day I was on my way to a shooting range. I stopped off at a local deli to get a cup of coffee. While standing in line, a Police Officer behind me told me that he could see my pistol, and to not turn around and place my license on the counter.

I had a Conceal / Carry license, and He knew that the range was right around the corner. He explained that a C/C is meant for it to be CONCEALED completely. I asked, wouldn't you rather know that I had a concealed weapon? He responded, "No, he would rather buy his coffee without having to be concerned about why I was carrying."

That officer was an idiot. Or at the very least, was not a "rational actor", in the economics sense of the term.

But then... most people are stupid.


Bringslite wrote:
Not sure about imaginary discrimination issues in imaginary game worlds... ;)

Adults should be capable of exploring adult topics through fantasy.


Smaller weapons are more easily hidden. Would make more sense for larger, more-unwieldy weapons to be more legally accepted.


Kobold Cleaver wrote:
It's set in Golarion, so not very separate.

Forking happens all the time. Or, in the case WoW, for example, lore development can occur in any direction the owners/developers wish.

In the end: it's a game, and as a game, the enjoyment of the experience takes precedence over tradition or lore. The lore is there only to facilitate the experience.

If it's decided that more people can enjoy the game if the lore is tweaked -- the lore should, by all means, be tweaked!


Kobold Cleaver wrote:
I'm among those "less better people".

Are you? Why? I meant that better people have no problem with monstrous PCs and work to make the experience at the table good for everyone.

Kobold Cleaver wrote:
If we followed the rule of "let them play what they like", this would be a pretty horrible game. We have to follow the rules of Golarion.

Why? And PFO is not the Pathfinder RPG. They are separate products.


DeciusBrutus wrote:

Figure each archetype has 5 distinctly different animations, plus twenty emotive animations, each of which has to work with 6 different armor meshes and 10 different weapon meshes. (They have to test all of these combinations because there WILL be someone who notices and complains that a troll wizard casting fireball in sexy heavy armor with a double-ax cuts his arm off if they don't.)

(11*5+20)*6*10+15+20=5000 man-days spent on the project. Figure the quality of artist specified costs $40/hour for 8-hour days, and the total cost of developing the art for a new race is on the order of $200,000.

100k players, $15 a month-ish... plenty of cash to get art done once subscribers start hitting the server.


Kobold Cleaver wrote:
Our best evidence is what's been seen in other games. I've got none of that--my only MMO experience is with Runescape. Just from what I generally see in tabletop games, though, I've learned to be wary about allowing monsters as PCs in Golarion.

Limited sample group. Play with better people.

Kobold Cleaver wrote:

Here's a known fact: Look for Good, Lawful or even Neutral goblins in all of Pathfinder's books and modules. Look for Good kobolds or orcs.

Sure, there might be one or two. One or two.

That number grows in an MMO way more than it should.

And what would be wrong with that? Let people play how they like.


Kobold Cleaver wrote:
Oh, and the polls you mention aren't very reliable, since they're taken from the forums. As is discussed on another thread on these forums, that sample favors the people who--not to sound snobby, as this description only half applies to me--understand and want to be a part of the design process. The sort of people who decide to play a reformed drow with an albino panther or whatever aren't the sort of people who take part in those polls.

Not sure that's true. Participating the forums doesn't really say anything about the wisdom / understanding of game design of the poster.

Without actual data gathered about this topic, all conjecture about the behavior of theoretical players is simply that. Guesses. We don't know what the outcome would be, and we certainly don't have enough information to tell us what people actually do want or intend to do in-game.


Kobold Cleaver wrote:
It has nothing to do with our taste and everything to do with the setting's flavor. If you want to play an MMO with lots of strange races, play World of Warcraft. And no, that's not WoW bashing. Just saying, Pathfinder is a very different setting.

I was under the distinct impression that Pathfinder's default setting of Golarion was no less diverse and fantastical as Faerun...


HalfOrc with a Hat of Disguise wrote:
And yet if you do make these 'rare' races available ... they might flood the game, as Blood Elves and later Worgen did in WoW. On the roleplay servers, Blood Elves can make up anywhere from 30-60% of the Horde population on average, even years after the expansion.

In WoW's case, Blood Elves became so popular because they were the only Horde race that wasn't outright grotesque to look at. Aesthetics are important to players, and even more important to roleplayers. WoW serious problems with their aesthetic, and the Horde was famously underpopulated because of it.

HalfOrc with a Hat of Disguise wrote:
Elves will be present in small numbers, I believe, because there are old Elven ruins from before their race fled from Glorarion the first time.

I, for one, will be playing an Elf if it is at all possible. Judging by the various polls I've seen around, Humans will outnumber every other race by quite a large margin... which really does make most of the argument against "exotic" races on the basis of the preservation of their "exoticness" -- rather moot.


Nihimon wrote:
The only way to make any particular race "rare" is to make it expensive. I don't really have a problem with that, as long as it's not correspondingly more powerful.

Actually, as we saw in DDO, the "rarer" races were usually rare in the playerbase because they had a reputation as "not as good as Humans for whatever character you're making".

Notably, the Warforged (ask Blaeringr about that) who had many excellent reasons to want to play them, but were almost universally shunned and excluded from groups (and therefore few players wanted to play as one) for the simple reason that Divine healing was less effective for them.

I'm all for races having drawbacks, flaws, penalties just as much as bonuses. It adds to characterization, but also does have a real affect on that race's popularity and commonality.


Klockan wrote:
You are arguing based on the TT game where PC's are rare. In an mmorpg PC's are very common, like the most common thing in the world. When every party and army has 50% drow's, undines, catfolks, tieflings et cetera the atmosphere in the game changes drastically compared to having mostly humans. Sure some might like that kind of fantasy, but most prefers when people look like humans, which all core races except half-orcs do.

What is "exotic" shifts, sure. But so what? And at the table, too, players are who you spend the majority of your time interacting with. I really don't see a difference in this area between your monitor and the table.

Klockan wrote:
In EVE its a non issue, no alliance would reject you just because you had low skills. But in EVE it costs more to revive the older your character is so having a young character has its perks as well. I'd like to see a cost of resurrecting in Pathfinder as well based on how much experience you got. As it is now high level characters can go out with average gear and then lose nothing each death which feels awful.

The cost of death can (and in EVE, does) easily become insignificant to older / wealthier players. Not to mention that older players are more powerful and therefore death is exponentially less likely to happen to them if they choose to avoid outright dangerous activities (like major fleet combat).

AvenaOats wrote:
1. I was reading recently that about 2/3 of RPG players in TT games use the "core 4" races: iirc they were: Human, Elf, Dwarf, Halfing/Gnome (I can't remember exactly but the archetype)

I think this is due almost entirely to the stigma players place against Mary Sues or any character that might possibly be mistaken as one. Which kills all the "fantasy" in fantasy when you're restricted to a tiny handful of character options. This is one of the most heinous, saddening features of the game, to me. Players should be able to and should feel free to create as fantastical a character as they like. It is no one else's place to tell you how to enjoy yourself.

So, essentially, this information doesn't really tell us why players use those races so frequently. I say it's because they know those races won't meet any opposition from anyone else at the table if they decide to use them. No one will roll their eyes and snark "of course you're gonna play a Dark Elf, you're so cheesy!" if you create a generic Human.

And, again, this is horrible. It restricts fantasy to the mundane. It undoes the very purpose of fantasy.

AvenaOats wrote:
2. Given the above maybe applies to mmorpgs also, and comes from Pathfinder RPG, then those make sense to start with. As already discussed that is already a lot I work for a limited/small art team at Goblin Works.

GW shouldn't underestimate the talents of the playerbase. Some of us are quite capable of contributing art assets, code, etc. Look at Second Life for an example of this sort of thing.


Kobold Cleaver wrote:
I only want vampires to exist as PCs later on. I don't think the current graphics will be able to sustain constant sparkling.

Being introduced to the game later than the other races would be, mechanically, a level adjustment. Which I've always hated the very concept of.

And it's one of the key critiques of EVE that there is a permanent power difference based on age.

And. It's one of my main objections to PFO: that you'd better get into the big boy's club on the ground floor or else you'll forever be the tiny fish in the pond. Ageism is just as bad as racism and sexism. It's frankly horrifying to think of it being codified and enforced by game mechanics.


DeciusBrutus wrote:
Your newspeak plusungood. Badwrongfun obsolete by plusunfun.

I had taken it, not as an allusion to Orwell, but as a way to put a sharp point on the issue at hand: many idiots oppose the inclusion of non-core races on purely selfish and/or ideological grounds. It's a matter of taste, and some people think their taste should supersede others'.

Given that the players are assumed to be Heroic characters at the table... I have personally never seen a reason to deny anyone their fun, however they may get it. Whether it's by endless variations of a Sue, rollplaying to the minmax, or by being the DM. I'm perhaps a tad bored of Humans being represented in every fantasy universe (how does that even make sense in the first place?! I mean, really...), let alone how they've always been so outrageously powerful mechanically in the d20 system, but I think it bears repeating that the players are by their nature supposed to be the unique, the unusual, the exotic, the tip of the curve. So what if "everyone" will play the race which the lore dictates is ultra-rare? If you take a sample of a population by actively selecting the most outstanding members of that population, it will be the players themselves.

I say the only badwrongfun is cockblocking the players from enjoying their fantasy their own way. And that's all it really comes down to. Someone wants to stop someone else from expressing themselves just because they have their own idea about how everyone else should behave.

The fitting punishment for such bad manners is to maroon them as a mundane joe in an ocean of sparkling snowflakes...


My lord Vecna approves of this enterprise.


Keovar wrote:
If you're already displaying that you're dishonest and dishonourable by robbing people, I have no reason to trust you. Unlike real-world crime which may often be caused by the desperate conditions of poverty, you're not really trying to feed a starving family, nor were you actually raised in an oppressive environment. Your character's very existence is completely voluntary, so your actions are the result mind/body dualism and non-causal free will. I will expect such an individual to do whatever is fun and convenient at the moment, so the only rational response is for me to make things as inconvenient and un-fun as possible when you're negatively affecting me. Trapped containers are just one way to do that.

A gentleman and scholar.


HalfOrc with a Hat of Disguise wrote:
There's also the counter to that, with the Bandits having a Wizard who can teleport them as well.

Thanks to a little spell called Dimensional Anchor, it's much easier to use Teleport for assaults than it is for escapes.


cartomancer wrote:
I disagree. We won't kill you anyway; we want high rep as much as y'all.

I'm not sure I would give much credence to a reputation system that didn't take extortion into account...

What sense would it make that bandits can have a high reputation regardless of what they do with their victims?

HalfOrc with a Hat of Disguise wrote:

Depending upon how organised the Chapters/Guild get in the Hexes they control, we may be looking at fast-response teams patrolling the areas near the borders of each Hex, and a 'trap' might be nothing more than fireworks set to launch straight up if the Merchant hits his panic button, giving the 'Guards' a quick and easy way of locating 'Merchant in Distress' locations and giving the Bandits a few choices.

1) Deliver the SAD Anyways and hope the bastard of a Merchant doesn't stall for time.

2) Kill him and take a much reduced profit, destroying resources and putting flags on themselves that will make it much easier for other Players to attack them without penalty.

3) Retreat for the time being and hide out until the Guards move on.

If I did banditry for a living, I know what I'd do.

But anyway, the potential for having Wizards with Teleport pop in and drop five well-armed men at the scene of a crime does give me a good idea for an adventuring party.


DeciusBrutus wrote:

I think that the usefulness of unattended traps is directly related to the cost and difficulty of healing while out and about; if they simply results in a 15 second delay for the cleric to recover a healing ability, they aren't useful.

There's a very fine line between useless and overpowered traps if hit points are cheap.

There's an opportunity cost to that 15 second cooldown. using your cooldown on one trap means you can't use it ten seconds later after the monsters beat the crap out of everyone because the trap was just a fall into a room filled with nasties...

I personally favor extremely deadly traps. Especially in an MMO where your character's death is guaranteed to not be permanent, only annoying to various degrees. Deadly traps gives players a reason to worry about them, and it also rewards the sneakthieves among us. Whether you're a Rogue with good de-trapping skills or a high-utility Wizard, players should feel rewarded for planning ahead and being clever. One of the ways of being "clever" is designing the traps, too, let's not forget.

Security is absolutely one of those areas of a sandbox PvP game that should be elaborate. Just as in EVE, we're lead to believe that extraordinary tales of embezzlement, burglary and theft are being designed into the game as possibilities -- nay, Expected! Player behavior.

Nothing is guaranteed to make me chuckle in an RPG quite like a "trap" that deals a pitiful amount of damage. I still remember thinking to myself, while playing NWN2, "What the crap am I hauling Neeshka around for? The worst trap I've found did 20 damage". By contrast, trying to open the wrong door in Baldur's Gate 2 was a great way to find yourself the subject of a Finger Of Death or Disintegrate, or worse, a Wail. That definitely sets the tone of an epic encounter with a lich.


HalfOrc with a Hat of Disguise wrote:

If there are chain-mail bikinis and other sorts of armor for females that defy logical use, then I propose we also have chain-mail chip'n'dale outfits and similar for the men, just to keep things even.

Why should we guys have all the fun, after all.

I think I'll hereby found PFO's first charity strip joint. For the lost and homeless whiteknights who have no damsels to rescue.

I shall call it "Big Strong Polearms".


Rafkin wrote:

Real women, in the real world, have closets full of impractical items. I don't think its unreasonable to assume women in a fantasy world would be any different.

Besides, these fantasy characters are wearing armor 24/7. I'd say a chain mail bikini is more realistic than wearing full plate all day.

Depends. Chainmail chafes the nipples.

But seriously, change "women" to "people" it'll be more accurate. No denying that high heels are just ridiculously impractical, but there's also no denying that they're flattering to the leg.

Real women, in the real world, tend to understand the cost vs. benefit of fashion vs. function. My closet has some highly impractical stuff in it, were you to consider each item in terms of its combat performance. But I'm not very sure you'd be the only person who understands this.

Those of us who've worn the crap probably have just as keen an understanding of the limitations of big hoop earrings, flowing scarves, stiletto boots and full-length evening gowns.

Given the choice between full plate mail and an evening gown, I think I know which one I'd prefer to wear all day, too. I don't think I've ever knowingly roleplayed a character who literally never took off the armor. (What, is there some sort of "poopchute" hatch built in, or something?!)

So, again, for the purposes of a fantasy world populated by purely fictional characters governed by utterly unrealistic, non-simulationist mechanics... aesthetics and sensibilities are what is important.

Tuoweit wrote:
Which makes perfect sense. However, I would disagree with the idea (not necessarily YOUR idea) that "boob plate" and chainmail bikinis are aesthetically better than more realistic-looking armour. I find the latter far more immersive.

I go either way depending on my mood and the art/craftsmanship involved. Aesthetics and fantasy are way more important to me personally than silly ideals about womens' bodies. But then, I'm an artist by trade and temperament.

Nihimon wrote:

For the record, I would like to see each player able to choose their own style, ranging from Red Sonja to Brienne of Tarth.

I believe that supporting the player's ability to express their own vision of their character (within the necessary constraints of the game mechanics) is far more important than enforcing any particular style choice.

I'm QFT as well.

KarlBob wrote:

Speaking of impractical armor, I just want shoulder pieces that allow my character to look over his shoulder and fit through a doorway.

Maybe the answer to boob plate and chainmail bikinis on town guards is to also include codpieces. Elaborate codpieces. In eye-catching, contrasting colors.

If a settlement equips their female town guards with chain bikinis, then the male town guards wear outlandish codpieces. If the female town guards wear less skimpy armor, the male town guards wear less outrageous codpieces. Let the eye-candy factor be balanced by the brain-bleach factor, when it comes to the stereotypical male audience.

Edit: Dress choices for PCs remain open. This idea is just meant to keep NPCs who are supposed to be soldiers from looking like they come from a different kind of 'fantasy'.

And quoting this for truth, too. Every word of it.

God, how I loathe Warhammer and its groupie called Warcraft.


Celestial Pegasus wrote:

Which is funny, since there are tons of other artistic cues that are not subtle (that is, the viewer can quickly discern them) and make gender clear just as easily as the 'armor' in question.

Face shape is one way. Some artists will add extra detail in the hair lines they draw. Accessories can do it as well; adding a little cloth skirt or similar item that goes over the armor can suggest gender as well. Now, it's true not all of these (or in some cases, ANY of these) are appropriate for all characters. They're just very basic examples.

Nonetheless, there are several ways an artist can indicate gender without unreasonably or unrealistically emphasizing the chest area. An example, for those interested in doing a bit of image-searching, might be the character Charlotte from the video game series "Samurai Shodown" (Yes, spelled incorrectly as 'Shodown'). Not wholly realistic, but a good example of conveying "female" without the use of the armor in controversy here.

A skirt and unbound hair styles are also rather problematic in combat situations. Fashion, as a whole, has little place on the battlefield. I'm not sure how much a soldier should worry about the gender of his opponent while dodging a greatsword.

And then there are some of us who might enjoy a certain freedom from heteronormative gender roles outside of combat... Not talkin' about kilts, here.

What could possibly be more important to a sandbox game than the freedom to design and present your character however you wish? I imagine non-feminine silhouettes should be the most mundane character option available to players. Given GW's blessedly progressive public stance about sexualities, we might finally be able to hope for wigs, cosmetics, non-gender-locked clothing or hairstyles... It'd be nice to put the characters back at the forefront of Role Playing Games. It'd be ghastly if GW restricted skin tone for in-game characters. An RPG with only white characters possible? What do you suppose the public's reaction should be to such a thing? Is it time we see an RPG with characters representing the full gamut of humanity?

What if I wanted to create a girl who shaved her head and passed herself off as a boy in the army? Or a jewel-bedecked waifish Bard dancing for his dinner at the local seedy tavern?

Or an assassin willing to do whatever it takes to get close to his target, to give a more concrete and realistic gameplay example...

There is such a huge variety of compelling characters to explore. 'Twould be a shame to yet lack that variety of the human experience for the sake of -- what? Mass appeal?

Didn't think PFO was ever intended "for the masses". Something for the devs to think on (and respond to!).


2 people marked this as a favorite.

Unless the game can accurately simulate the functionality of garments, we'll continue to see "tools" designed with visual aesthetic as foremost priority.

What I mean is that the medium is purely non-physical and there aren't any real reasons to design armors as anything but costume. You could give the same stats to a sandwich board as full plate. Players have no in-game motivation to care about the real-world efficacy of their armor.

Sex is, for now, a meta-game concern.

Alas and hurrah...


Micco wrote:

And is there any hope for the poor farmer protecting his stuff when the world is literally flooded with bandits that never seem to die.

I love the idea, but I think there will be soooo many people wanting to 'roleplay evil' that you have no hope of preventing your sheep from being violated daily. This is all a consequence of the 'massive' part of the game design...too many people on the server means there is no real social consequence for being a jerk, so the world will be rife with them. Think Mogadishu with tights and capes. On a smaller server (of a couple hundred people) the jerks would become obvious and eliminated quickly.

So no, I don't think farms can work in PfO as it will be essentially a third-world country. People starve in third-world countries largely because the jerks gank the farmers.

A wise bandit will recognize the central role which farms play in putting food on his own plate...

And one shouldn't imagine that farmers are incapable of hiring swords, themselves.

Being wrote:
Weren't the consumable rations and water flasks in EQ consumed from your backpack automatically over time?

Yes.

Food being important because it allowed regeneration of health and mana, and then became more important as a "buff slot" because consuming better food gave you... buffs.


Wow.

Look at that art. How many artists do you guys have on staff, again? It's like vertigo. I have to keep reminding myself that it's only been a few months at most...


Nihimon wrote:
Aunt Tony wrote:
... there are no good outcomes for giving some players combat-capable pets no matter which point of view you're using.

I remain convinced that this is only an issue in games that aim to have perfect balance between the classes. I hold out hope that PFO doesn't bother trying to balance 1v1 PvP, and allows players to do things like specialize in Divination :)

I would be with you if I knew I wouldn't ever be forced to defend myself against some random min-maxed assassin every day.

But then again, I remember the decade-long screeching of anti-caster hate we all have had to suffer with because the poor defenseless little Fighters suddenly had to contend with Wizards they couldn't one-shot in 3.5 anymore...

Class balance is still probably for the best overall even if it does lead to stale, boring gameplay.


Nihimon wrote:
Aunt Tony wrote:
God willing, we'll be able to manufacture in-game post-its and write notes on them...

I posted a request for User Objects that could be used for this and so much more.

It's got my +1 now.


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Kobold Cleaver wrote:

It's the strangest thing. On the body of each victim is a note containing a single non-word:

"Nihimon'd".

God willing, we'll be able to manufacture in-game post-its and write notes on them...

Bluddwolf wrote:
This is very short sighted, just think of how much rum and ale we will drink in your taverns, in celebration of another successful day of banditry.

Who owns the tavern after it's been taken over by the bandits?

I fail to see how I can profit by this.

Unless we postulate a purely fictional old maid pining the day away in a lonely kitchen, dreaming of molestation by a horde of roaming rascals who, upon seizure of the lodging, make good their lusty inclinations.

Purely fictional, mind you.

Willing to bet GW is planning a rather less... blue-lit gaming experience, though.


Imbicatus wrote:
In order to be balanced, I think "Raise Dead" (and Summon spells) should not exist as spells, but as a trainable ability to go in a class slot that would allow you to have one undead companion that improves with level similar to a druid animal companion.

One of the major problems of combat-capable pets is that it provides the owner several advantages over anyone without one -- unless the pet is so weak that it's a waste of resources to use one.

For starters, action economy. A pet that whips wands is strictly better than not having one. For example.

For seconds, hit points. If the pet is easily ignored, then opponents can simply target the owner and kill him more easily than a non-pet user who didn't allocate resources to have a pet out. If the pet is dangerous, then an opponent is faced with the decision of whether to kill the pet first while being beat on by the owner. If the two are roughly equally dangerous, you still have an advantage because opponents' crowd control and countermeasures still have limited targetting. This is related to the action economy argument but from "the other" viewpoint.

So pets increase the owner's effective HP if the pet is dangerous, and provide little in exchange for their cost if they aren't. Except for the last case, pets are overpowering for the owners relative to anyone who doesn't have one, and in the last remaining case, they're a trap option for the owner.

I.e., there are no good outcomes for giving some players combat-capable pets no matter which point of view you're using.

For thirds, the opportunity costs involved in using a pet. You have to equip it, and this cost complicates the balance of your character even more. This is strategic opportunity cost. You also have to issue it separate commands or else take into account the whims of an AI. This would be the tactical opportunity cost.

For the same reasons Leadership is a horrible game design option at the tabletop, combat pets are toxic in multiplayer games, especially competition-driven MMOs. The Leadership Feat does have a purpose at the tabletop where your particular table may happen to have too few players to really work well; and DMs are encouraged to think creatively to enable a party of two (or one...) players. In an MMO, there is no such excuse.

For fourths, how do you allocate the abilities and powers of the duo between owner and pet? If you strictly add abilities on top of the owner's baseline, then you result in a combination of entities with more power than any non-pet'd player. If you divide a total character's abilities between the two in some manner, then the owner -- the player -- feels as though he is much less invested in his character and is instead, in some sense, more of a "general". It breaks immersion, I guess you could say, by making the player feel as though both pet and owner entities are merely parts of an avatar which only exists in his head.

Pets are bad for MMOs. Why not just give the Necromancer the same number and power of abilities as anyone else, and skip the unnecessary complication? It's a matter of cost vs. benefit as far as everyone is concerned. The devs. The other players. Only those who are emotionally invested into the concept of raising undead minions are annoyed -- and that's a price that the devs would be fools to not pay because such people are 1. a minority and 2. seeking a purely subjective experience. It's not worth pissing off every other player to please the few.

So if the subjective experience is so important to such people, they are well advised to seek elsewhere.

Bringslite wrote:
Good point Sir Being. This board could definately be better served if discussion were not approached in an angry manner. I am new here but I see it everywhere. Heck, some of my first posts where agressive too, but I came to see that it is counter-productive.

Not necessarily.


Being wrote:

The problem with placing such powers in the hands of players is that those with the ability to dvine the location of rare and powerful items and resources are unlikely to sell their discoveries but rather go harvest them themselves.

Possibly their divination could give the purchasing player a vision the diviner never sees? Still seems awflly prone to exploit.

Divination is a rather notoriously limited school to specialize into. Specifically, if there's any fighting involved to obtain the MacGuffin Muffin that you sussed out, you'll need pals to help you get it. If your pals are unwilling or unavailable or you have no pals, you will be well advised to sell your knowledge.

We don't know what the limitations and perks will be of specialist Wizards. It may be that they are actually quite combat capable. But this is unlikely.

Opportunity cost is not just an empty word.


Being wrote:
The issue is basically if all the crafters keep making, for example bronze swords, and those bronze swords don't find a way to cease existing then nobody will buy a bronze sword from the crafters since the market will be flooded with a million of them already.

Assuming no population growth, and a very limited variety of craftable goods and rapid rate of proliferation of the goods. I.e., what if the widget is so expensive/difficult to create that it takes a long while for any to exist on the server at all? If this rate is slower than the population's growth rate, there will always be a market for the widget.

If new widgets are added to crafters' repertoire faster than population growth, then those new widgets will also always have a market.

In practice, there's more ways to control item availability than just "sinks".


Harad Navar wrote:
Aunt Tony wrote:
A "gameplay frustration" would be the situation in which you discover that, no matter what you learn, no matter what you do, no matter what the future may bring, you cannot overcome "this" obstacle. That's not the same thing as being forced to retreat and develop a better strategy for next time. So I think you'll find that you and I have very similar outlooks in this matter after all.
It may well be true that our outlooks are similar, however, my read of your main issue seems to be that "this" is the basic concept of PFO, a game based on winning and losing. If this is not so, I am sorry for mis-reading your comments. However,
Quote:
Even the purest competition does not necessarily require such "predator-prey" dynamics as the competition is only a measure of achievement.
sounds like that is what you mean.

I don't think I know what you think I'm saying.

In any case, I don't know whether PFO will actually require "predator-prey" social dynamics: it isn't launched yet.

I sincerely doubt a game with such a system in place could grow, let alone be profitable. GW's staff is composed of experienced professionals in a well documented industry. I think the likelihood of PFO itself being hostile to player cooperation has been ruled out already given this alone. The dev blogs strongly suggest that cooperative player communities are being counted on for the game's social structure.

And the blogs have also given a rough outline of hard systems being constructed to punish anti-social ("toxic") player behavior.

But.

The game itself also seems to be getting design work done specifically to allow and take into account that same toxic behavior.

So I simply conclude that it will be up to the playerbase to establish the tone of the game's social context.


Being wrote:
Unsubstantiated assertion and possibly ad hominem. You assert your worldview is correct and mine is 'warped', but you defer explanation because it would take too long: I call that pure horsepucky. Your worldview is rendered suspect by your own rhetorical device.

After a bit of thought, I think I can summarize sufficiently to give a concise response.

I believe human life and its experiences are valuable and should be cherished. Even that of borderline sociopaths bitter after decades of failure who don't know any better than to destroy others in order to result in a higher relative position for themselves. Ignorance is not immoral, but I do wish such people could be shown that progress cannot be made during a race to the bottom.

Being wrote:
In PFO the game designers are thought to be generally restricting themselves to providing the environment and tools for the players to use in developing their content, and I submit the content players will develop will predictably entail conflict. The more creative will likely involve plot, just as in a story.

No doubt. It only takes a few hateful people to poison a community, after all.

But in principle, each individual can still choose to not be toxic sociopaths.

Being wrote:
In conflict there will be winners and there will be losers. It is most likely not a 'zero-sum' environment, but that only says interacting parties' aggregate gains and losses are either less than or more than zero: Citing 'zero-sum' as a descriptor is not very meaningful, even if it makes you sound authoritive in game design.

Zero-sum (and non-zero-sum) interactions can involve any collection of entities. A thousand. Ten groups of a thousand each.

Or even just two people.

It is still up to each individual whether they will behave cooperatively or with hostility.

You wouldn't be here to read this, for example, if untold and uncountable millions of people didn't understand that mutual cooperation is what leads to progress. Of the whole group. Subversive individuals are rightly excised for the health and safety of the meta-organism.

Yes, an individual might be able to exploit the good will of a larger society for his own gain. Many do so in their folly, not realizing that their host is not powerless against them and it is only through the success of the host that their pathetic, selfish little parasitic lives can continue. Intelligence is a bell curve, after all.

I say that justice is simply the dead hand of Darwin: weeding out those unworthy individuals even now.

Being wrote:
So GW will generally not be defining the goal of the game but creating a context in which the players may do so.

There can be multiple goals in a game. Defining the "context" of the game implicitly defines the possible goals.

Being wrote:
In the matter of 'zero-sum' GW has stated, IIRC, there will be a slight economic inflation anyway so 'zero-sum' can be safely eliminated as a factor in evaluating design.

All the more reason for players to relax and not be so hostile: it's guaranteed that there will always be enough for everyone.

Being wrote:

I disagree. What has changed, arguably for the worse, is that society has taken to coddling and protecting fools from the consequences of their folly, and in hubris, and for the sake of increased profit some game designs flatter that social change by reflecting the 'nobody loses/everybody gets a trophy' attitude. It is not a radical advance in game design it is a degradation.

To paraphrase somebody who first said it: "Protect men from the consequences of foolishness and you end with a world filled with fools."

The world is already filled with fools. And one more than you think.

It should be obvious, but fantasy isn't reality. The phrase "it's just a game" is not meant in jest. PFO really is just a game, a shared fantasy. In such fantasies, we, the constituents, define the rules.

If one's goal for entertainment is to see others suffer, I'm not sure how one can expect others to willingly participate in that entertainment while also creating a pleasant experience -- for anyone. There would always be a bigger fish. The desire to strive to be that biggest fish is self-contradictory since it acknowledges the exponential un-likelihood that oneself will succeed.

Two-hundred and fifty thousand players. You have a better chance of being struck by lightning twice in the same day while rowing a boat to London from Mars.

And how long does the biggest fish even remain so with all the other fish taking bites out of him?

The term is "Toxic community cascade collapse". I hereby coin it.


Being wrote:
There is a significant difference between a game and entertainment. In games someone wins, and as corollary someone loses.

Only in some games. Not all of them. Not all games are "zero sum". Just like the economy "in real life" is not a zero sum game -- someone profiting does not necessarily mean that someone else has to lose or pay anything.

Being wrote:
I don't think GW wants to produce a work of music where everyone wins and nobody loses. If you make a good game you are providing an arena in which there are winners and losers.

That's just incorrect. It's a perception caused by a warped worldview that's quite beyond the scope of this thread to deconstruct, though. Suffice to say that the field of game design, as a segment of human knowledge and a discipline of study, has advanced radically in the last few decades.

Being wrote:
Every good story has conflict. Conflict resolved requires at least one winner and one loser, though the loser may gain something else, something unexpected. That is what the plot of every tale is all about. Every game has competition in which there are winners and losers. If you describe a fictional setting in which there are no winners and no losers you are not describing a game, nor are you describing a good tale.

A story and a game are fundamentally different things.

A game might tell a story, it might include and contain a story, but the game is not even at all similar to what a story is.

A game involves participants with agency governed by a system of rules, interacting with some goal. A game's goal may or may not be one in which a player gains by another's loss, it may or may not be the goal of uncovering a story, the goal of a game is defined by its designers and could be just about anything so long as the designer can define it, either implicitly or explicitly. The players are not even necessarily aware of what the goal is. All multiplayer games involve the interaction of players with each other, no matter how tenuously, but this does not imply that all multiplayer games or that all games in general are PvP -- and even furthermore, it doesn't imply that even PvP games always involve one player gaining by the another's loss. There can be non-PvP elements for players in a PvP game to engage with cooperatively. Even the purest competition does not necessarily require such "predator-prey" dynamics as the competition is only a measure of achievement. He who achieves most, wins. This doesn't necessarily mean that "he who achieves most must do so by harming the others" unless you'd go so far as to declare that simply by being "the winner" and excluding others from being "the winner" that the winner has harmed others by dint of denial. Which seems a bit of a pedantic stretch to me. But competition isn't the only form of multiplayer game. Collaboration is another form.

A story is a static recording. It does not involve interaction in the sense of a two-way exchange. It is not dynamic. It doesn't respond. A story would be music or a novel: the concept of "winning" is inapplicable because there is no goal and there is no system by which an audience might engage with the story other than to passively experience it. You can't "win at music", that's right.

So the saying that every good story has conflict is simply not a useful axiom for game design. Just as "two points make a line" is inapplicable to reality because there is in fact no such thing as either a point or a line. Those ideas are nothing but constructs of the imagination useful for philosophy (mathematics) but they don't actually exist. Perhaps some games rely heavily on the appeal of storytelling elements to engage with players, but that isn't what makes them games. Puzzle games, for example, don't necessarily have conflict in the story sense of the term. Many puzzle games are just pure interaction with a player who precipitates reward for himself through that interaction.

If you can't understand the difference between, for example, watching a movie and being a player in a game, you are fundamentally unfit to do game design or have an opinion about it. Doesn't mean you can't enjoy experiencing games, though.

Harad Navar wrote:

This I disagree with this a lot. I find frustration in real life when I have expectations that my best efforts will succeed, but they don't. Most of the time I do not know all the facts to make my best effort my best effort. It is at best "the best effort knowing what I know". In life I can not know enough to always assure that my best effort will be enough. My life sucks when I resent that I don't get what I want.

In PFO I want to have the chance to say "Wow, that didn't go well! What can I do to have a better shot at that?" PFO, unlike life, has a "How To Manual", namely the written rules. This makes getting better by knowing more possible. I am sure that I will forget something that will kill my character, probably a lot of times. I don't feel frustrated by that. It is an opportunity to become more skilled through the experience of getting killed. Not like life at all.

It's because PFO is unlike life that you are able to avoid the experience of frustration. Your viewpoint toward a setback in PFO is not what I meant by "frustration". A "gameplay frustration" would be the situation in which you discover that, no matter what you learn, no matter what you do, no matter what the future may bring, you cannot overcome "this" obstacle. That's not the same thing as being forced to retreat and develop a better strategy for next time. So I think you'll find that you and I have very similar outlooks in this matter after all.

AvenaOats wrote:
Something like: If you know what is in the dungeon before you set foot in it, something is wrong with the dungeon?!

Knowing that you absolutely must have an X, a Y and a Z class to deal with the dungeon is definitely a form of "knowing what is in the dungeon".


Bringslite wrote:

Huh? I was going to post that you were misunderstood. Now I am not so sure that I can. When I play games, I play for the challenge. Some I win, some I lose. I do want the challenge though.

It seemed to me that you were stating (in a nutshell) that you thought this game would be best served by designing it's PVE encounters with a "many options to defeat encounter" outlook rather than an "only one way past here design". Was I misunderstanding you?

No, that's exactly correct.

Besides, having options is what allows it to be a game in the first place. Otherwise it's just a boring movie. And these days, I would argue that "boring movie" is a tautology.

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