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Goblin Squad Member. Organized Play Member. 308 posts. No reviews. No lists. No wishlists.



Goblin Squad Member

Any chance of contributors to the Kickstarter video getting our complimentary Goblin Squad icon?

Goblin Squad Member

Upon dying, your PC's spirit appears at an oubliette in the Near Ethereal. You must navigate this fog-shrouded maze to find a portal to return you to the Core. However, this does not instantly return you to life. Instead, you appear next to your remains. After a brief period of time, you're able to reenter your body. For whatever reason, should you not reenter your body in a certain amount of time (this period decreases in length as you gain levels), your corpse will decay and you will have to be raised from the dead to come back. In these cases, another player can raise you or you can be raised by an NPC priest for a fee (to be raised by an NPC, a corpse must be placed within range of them and used; an option will come up to make the NPC raise them, for a cost of 100 gold per level). If the period of time is very long, you will require a resurrection.

We have no xp loss when you die. Upon death, you will drop all the gold you're carrying, along with the items in your hands. The other items you have equipped will be stored on your corpse. Note that it's possible for another player to loot your corpse while you're in spirit form. Unequipped items cannot be looted. Other players also have the option to stab or burn your corpse, forcing the player to be raised in the case of the former and resurrected in the case of the latter. If you come back to life by reentering your own body (picking up the placeable corpse), you will experience a stat loss that will be in effect until you rest. Since death uses up all allotted rests in your rest period, this means you have to wait for an in game period equal to your level (e.g. a level 2 waits for 2 in game hours to rest; a level 10 waits for 10 in game hours) or you have to go to a safe rest area like an inn room. If you are brought back to life through the actions of another player or an npc priest, you experience no stat loss and your rests are not used up."

NOTE: Players can carry corpses of the deceased; it is a common occurrence for players to carry corpses to the nearest church, a hot spot for clerics who will then raise the fallen (possibly gaining some experience or progressive reward for doing so). It can also be an area for people to recover from negative alignment through healing (and ressing if possible). Such systems remove the general downtime of death for good aligned players; increases risk and down time for evil players, all in a very interesting system which for me, has been the most well implemented system I have played. Dying an idiotic death at night, deep in the wilderness was far more costly to my time than a more safe death; you're taught to play wise and fear death - but not too much.

(Some of you may recognise it!)

Goblin Squad Member

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In a previous thread, Elth mentioned a desire for a return to GTA3'esque movement fluidity; climbing, jumping and vaulting walls, scaling rooftops and leaping from building to building. This immediately got me watching videos of Assassins Creed; a game I could not bare to play properly, yet put an exorbitant number of hours into simply for the enjoyment, the feel and the brand of freedom the game offered in regards to movement and truly being a thief in an urban environment.

I'm now in a frame of mind to ask myself and to you on the forum, why can this fluidity of gameplay not be transferred to an MMORPG? Many of the pitfalls of transferring mechanics to the MMORPG environment would not be felt in implementation of this mechanic and it would merely be a case of balance than that of technology.

Video illustration.

We're yet to find out how skills are handled, how character development will truly function and for this reason it is difficult to offer possible means of balance. It is however possible to say that this 'could' be balanced; offering such manouverability to only the most skilled acrobats would be key, and such a level of skill should come at a high sacrifice should one want to be a true street ninja (only light armour, ridiculously high dex, high deployment of available skill into acrobatics etc). Such acts of acrobatics would also severely drain stamina and such a character would be railroaded into being designed specifically to allow such athletics.

I don't need to emphasise how much of a positive thing this could be for the game; any MMORPG which produced a trailer including that of a thief backstabbing his victim, scrambling up the face of a building and disappearing into the night...unthinkable pleasure.

As I said, given the right engine, such mechanics are more an issue of game balance than programming and I'd believe the time invested in coding and designing such gameplay would make my eyes melt, and many others. Never before has an MMORPG had any degree of freedom of movement, and such an investment would trickle down to all classes as they would have a means to invest little skill in order to gain greater agility; at the very least have cool animations for jumping over obstacles.

Goblin Squad Member

I've put up a Pathfinder Online IRC for people to come and discuss PFO and MMORPGs together.

If you have never heard of IRC before, it is merely a popular means of online chat which can be accessed through both your browser using sites such as Mibbit or software such as mIRC. If you are a user of IRC then please idle in the channel so that we may gather some interest and establish a space for us all to share.

You can find the channel at irc.stratics.com (6667) in #PFO or click here.

Look forward to seeing you all there!


Just read this regarding death penalties in ArcheAge (an upcoming Korean Sandbox/Themepark hybrid).

"The largest change is that the materials are carried, instead of being stored in inventory, to build the house. By doing so causes the need for sea trading and riding on the boat. The tree cut by the user goes into the inventory, but when refined in order to build a house it becomes a package. This does not go into the inventory and is carried on the back.
When a package is on the back, they cannot run so must travel in walking speed. When they ride on the horse, they can move a bit faster but the horse too will be walking. Boats and carriages do not have speed limit.
The special property of these packages is that when logged out or killed, it drops to the ground. So as it is not in the inventory there is a threat that its ownership may change anytime."

A very interesting mechanic, perhaps even a suitable and meaningful replacement for full loot in the 21t Century. Would bring a lot of good elements to PvP engagements, whilst taking away a lot of the issues of full loot which many would not subject themselves to.

Goblin Squad Member

I was wondering if, given the skill based system which we currently know will be employed, if the goblins at Goblinworks have any thoughts on offering the ability to acquire something along the lines of a Prestige Class.

To avoid confusion, I do not immediately mean the prestige classes available in the TTRPG and I am simply using it as a relevant terminology for allowing a player to exchange some minor restriction in acquiring minor benefits through following a degree of specialisation.

Consider a character has taken a very strong approach towards specialising primarily as a caster. Upon reaching certain prerequisite skill levels and perhaps gaining a desired level of reputation with a given Wizard guild/school/institution, they may then be granted the prestige class of an Apprentive Wizard, Sorcerer etc. This would perhaps offer a small bonus to the class in differentiating the class from others preferring hybrid builds, perhaps offering a unique spell or cosmetic items of clothing or staffs which further identify the character in his position. As the characters skills and reputation progress with his chosen organization, he could progress through to a full Wizard or Sorcerer for all to see. Such options could easily be made available for a range of prestige classes, perhaps allowing players of more advanced skill and relevant reputation the ability to proceed down advanced prestige classes. The deeper a players wishes to advance into his prestige classes would dictate the level to which he limits himself from skills not traditional with his class. E.G as one progresses as a Wizard, ones capacity to become a master of heavy armour, two handed weapons etc could diminish respectively. This would offer a fair trade of should they gain any competitive advantages through deep specialisation.

Remember that these would be soft features offering not so much a competitive advantage, but rewarding the player in the way of reputation and a more defined identity. The degree to which a character could become more of x class and less of y should only be small enough to maintain balance, yet large enough to establish itself. It could also represent a means ingame for a player to show his advanced development and could offer a very illustrative and intuitive feature which would supplement immersion.

I think such an implementation could offer an effective means to re-establish the connection with the class format of the RPG whilst maintaining a skill based system. Skill based games, particularly MMORPGs have a habit of creating a large blackhole of character identity as character roles can lose definition and the staples of RPG worlds such as Fighters, Mages and Clerics are not readily identifiable. Such a feature could add great depth should the community and the developers desire it.

Goblin Squad Member

Having seen the massive interpretation and miscommunication between so many active members of this forum, I thought it would be advantageous to have a thread in which we can all get to know eachother a little better. Open PvP, Roleplay and a range of other applicable terms mean many different things depending upon where you've come from so lets try and add a little perspective.

Please try and refrain from posting other than to give an introduction! Plenty of room for banter elsewhere ^^.

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RL name is Jeff. I'm 24 and I am an undergraduate Economics student (got there a bit late I know) in Manchester, UK. I've recently begun playing the Pathfinder RPG over the last few months having been a reader for a little longer. News of PFO couldn't have come at a more exciting time for me.

My greatest past time has been playing MMORPGs. Starting with Ultima Online in 1998, I then managed to give almost every mainstream MMORPG a whirl up to now. My time however was most put into Ultima Online, Anarchy Online, Lineage 2, World of Warcraft and Darkfall Online.

I mainly enjoy these games to play with people and shy away from aspects of the game which does not priorities player interaction. Yes I know I played Lineage 2 (mob farming game of the century), but I was in a great guild for a long time. If you've read my posts then you probably already get why I'm here.

Really looking forward to news and updates as they come, until the day I hope I can establish my guild and help bring the River Kingdoms to life.

Goblin Squad Member

Whilst I see some great debate surrounding a players ability to be a GM and directly introduce or influence in game instances or content, I think we're all aware that this is a problematic concept and will be difficult to implement. A lighter idea and one which is instantly usable to great effect, is that of a permutation of an Ultima Online Seer.

A Seer is a player picked for their long standing in the community and their roleplaying abilities. Their role would be to act as the catalyst for generating and guiding player interactions in game, events and offer advice and guidance to players. They are not Gamemasters and can not directly influence content; their abilities do not extend beyond that of a normal player, excluding that of (under guidance) assuming the role of an NPC or monster to which they could infuse an event with storycraft and create unique and compelling interactions. Any allowance of such an ability would be under the expressed permission of a Gamemaster, of whom Seers would have open lines of communication. Such content could take the form of a monster or NPC invasion, a battle or a more social event such as a played out societal event or public appearance of an important NPC - the sky is the limit.

The beauty of Seers is not that they're simply awesome, far more than that. They're free! Established members of the community would apply in droves for this role and can use their very limited abilities in bringing an otherwise static world to life, as well as to stimulate player interaction and roleplay and offer a clear line of communication for player desires and feedback to reach the Gamemasters.

NOTE
Before anyone says it (narrows his eyes at Scott), these would be serious positions offered to substantial, responsible and trusted members of the community. Actions taken would require advanced and expressed permission by above in all cases. A Seer's role would be 99% that of nothing more than a position to stimulate player interaction and help players both old and new with no special powers to that of an ordinary player.

At the bare minimum, this offers TTRPG GMs a very prominent and esteemed role in directing and influencing player interactions, promoting and accurately guiding roleplay and infusing the world with storycraft to which they do so well on the tabletop. Players look to these people and work with them in making magic happen.

That and they're awesome and I would have suggested their involvement regardless. You don't know how much a single good Seer can bring to a MMORPG.

Goblin Squad Member

Call me old fashioned, or look no further than Diablo 3, Lineage Eternal or Torchlight. Am I alone in my belief that fully 3D MMORPGs lose more than they gain through utilising restrictive, costly and resource intensive 3D engines?

For further reference check these examples:
Isometric.
Floating Camera/3D.

Both offline and online, my greatest experiences in video games can be found within an isometric point of view. Such engines allow for far greater ease of control (especially for new MMORPG gamers), can be very kind on hardware requirements and offer a far smoother and immersive gameplay experience. Becoming a master of my floating camera has not been an endeavour I have enjoyed in any of my 14 years of online gaming, nor has the ability to see far onto the horizon been without the limitations of characters rezzing a maximum of a hundred yards ahead.

Fully fledged 3D games fall into a very similar trap in failing to differentiate themselves through a seemingly identical setup; blurring ones eyes slightly and almost every contemporary MMORPG becomes one and the same. This is very evident in the downgrading of engines such as that of World of Warcraft and The Old Republic in accommodating for low spec systems and a large quantity of simultaneous players in one area. Cartoony graphics and a dilution of detail are simply sacrifices made in acquiring a viewpoint which offers more problems than benefits. Personally I see this as detrimental to a titles character and identity when adopting this industry standard without serious consideration for alternatives. Upcoming and recent game titles alone have shown isometric view points to be both highly function, attractive and personally, far superior in the case of RPG and MMORPGs.

Graphics like this are more than functional and I was wondering what the communities views were on this topic?

Sidenote: Being an avid poster on predominantly MMORPG orientated websites, you cannot believe how refreshing it is to hear the opinions of normal people!