Rokolith's page

Welcome aboard Tork! It's nice to see your Darkfall background, I'm from that neck of the woods as well. I'll be rootin for ya buddy.

What a lovely birthday present this dev blog has been!

(Ok, maybe you released it because it's Wednesday, but I'm going to pretend it was for me)

Will the Monster Pool players be able to take hold on strong enemies from escalations?

This sounds like such a fun system. The randomly generated named/descriptions and disguises remind me of spy party http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-7tgWQKJh8

BTW Nice Muse reference.

Fear is the path to the Dark side!

Fear leads to Anger, Anger leads to Vandalism, Vandalism leads to hiding out in abandoned home in downtown boston, squatting leads to sore knees, sores knees leads to buying a hover-round, hover-rounds lead to basketball, basketball leads to three point shots, three point shots lead to celebration, celebration leads to funny looking hats, hats lead to sitting in the time-out corner, time-out leads to twidling of thumbs, thumbs lead to being diamond league is Starcraft 2, Zerg rushes lead to being in an uncomfortable and potentially dangerous holiday in Mexico, Mexico leads to water filters, water filters lead to Alex Jones who sells them at a discount, water leads to water baloon fights, fights lead to nuclear war.

This is great. Good job.

Less fight, more Pit.

Also, the crowds were a bit much, it would be much better with a low-res texture that changes every few seconds. For a good example, we can look to the Pit Fighting game put out by Nintendo; http://i.imgur.com/ZXvxs.jpg

Well thanks anyways Decius, you gave it a shot.

I really enjoyed that discussion, but I'm surprised player made content never came up, which I think is the most exciting part of future RPGs.

You may want to look into the 'Guild Leader' role.

I would love to hear more about player-made content, but I know that's a long way off.

For the record, the line started at about 1930. The next person joined me at about 1950.

As of this writing (1953) there are still only two people in line.

The first time I read this I thought you were a time-traveler.

I really hope a video of this surfaces.

In an effort to keep our bloodlines pure, the League Of Elven Purity stands ready and vows to do its best to educate, promote and arrange elven only marriages and copulation.

*Snicker* Sounds like the Bachelor for elves. They take so long do decide anything, can you imagine? 5th Season they just introduced the host.

I enjoyed this blog more with this playing in the second monitor; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ypAAsmgVmhk

If I have to choose a number I would go for number 4. But if I get to choose exactly what I would like to see, it would be a mix of option 1 and option 4.

I don't mean to be rude, but is there a question or suggestion here? We as players are allowed to create any kind of event we like within the ToS and EULA, so yes, there will no doubt be funerals for RL deaths. What more is there to discuss?

I absolutely want to see movement speed and reduced speed from encumbrance implemented. Not all races are equal, especially when it comes to melee combat and stealth, where racial differences (Refering to small and medium size weapons) make a big difference. Players should of course me able to equalize overland travel by hitching a ride on a caravan or mounting a steed, but having the movespeed true to the PnP is something I'd really like to see.

Rokolith wrote:

For druids, being neutral and using nature's power are the two main things.
For Paladins, being Lawful Good and using divine power are the two main things.
For Barbarians, being Chaotic and using Rage and rage powers are the two main things.
For Monks, being Lawful and using Ki-infused Martial Arts are the two main things.

Just to nitpick, but Barbarians are not restricted to Chaotic, and they are not about being chaotic. They are simply non-lawful. They are fueled by rage but they can be neutral.

Ah, this is very true. Thank you for pointing this out.

This is a good question. But I think it applies to more than just druids, but all class archtypes that have a restriction requirement and iconic powers.

For druids, being neutral and using nature's power are the two main things.
For Paladins, being Lawful Good and using divine power are the two main things.
For Barbarians, being Chaotic and using Rage and rage powers are the two main things.
For Monks, being Lawful and using Ki-infused Martial Arts are the two main things.

So how do you make class archtypes with alignment restrictions and selective powers available to a player? Theres the option to make each of the above archtypes to require a "joining". A Coven for Druid, a Holy Oath for a Paladin, a Fearsome Cry for a Barbarian, a Vow of Discipline for a Monk.

There is also the possible requirement of skills, requiring the player to have all of the minimums for a level 1 of the archtype they want.

What I would like to see is a combination of the two, at least for these archtypes, if not all of them. Those players that want to become say a Barbarian would get the base requirements for a level 1 Barbarian (BAB 1 Fort Save 2 Skill Ranks 4+ D12+ Health) then seek out a trainer or location for their Fearsome Cry. The trainer could be sage-like brawler in a beer soaked tavern, shouting at the top of a mountain on a mysterious runed rock that a local tribe revers or former gladiator willing to pass on his deadly craft.

I think this would add alot to the game, because players would be looking to find all of these places and people in the area, and it would be explorers who know about the mountaintop where Barbarians have pilgrimaged for generations or know about the cottage in the woods under the great tree where a druid makes his home.

I prefer having a small point buy at character creation so you feel really good out of the door, but I don't feel too strongly about it, because the character is going to double and triple in power very shortly.

My first MMO was runescape. I had a ton of fun with that game, and its still a great game for kids.

I was a medium level, just starting to equip some of the better armor in the game, magic or 'rune' armor and weapons. I had a whimpy run sword and shield, but my big goal was to get a rune 2handed sword, which packed quite a bit of power.

Hanging out in a noobie area, skilling up (Doing the same thing over and over thousands of times) I came upon a man standing outside an item bank asking if anybody had a red bead. A red bead was an item you got from lvl1 imps that would spawn in random places of the world, and for a low level quest you needed 4 or 5 beads of different colors to complete it. So here was this high level guy asking for over 30 mins if anybody had a red bead to trade for- he was getting frustrated from waiting. Out there leveling... something I think it was woodcutting I came across an imp, slayed it and god a red bead. I went back to the guy at the bank and said "Hey I got a red bead, trade you for it?", he said "YES! What do you want for it". I pondered this for a moment, then blurted out my heart's desire, "A rune2handed sword". There was silence for a good minuet and he said, "Ok... fine. But you'll owe me a favor and when I ask you- you'll have to do it." I agreed, and made the trade of a red bead for a very powerful sword I could barley equip. Having this powerful weapon accelerated my character growth, and it was my faithful companion on many adventures. I loved that thing.

About a year and a half later I get a message from whats his face saying its time to cash in the favor, I want 2 million gold. I laughed him off and my alignment IRL went -80.

Fast foreward quite a few years and I'm an experienced WoW player, quitting the game at the end of burning crusade. The fact that I broke my word had always bothered me, well a little anyways. So I decided to set the karmic balance straight. I went to the noob area for blood elves and opened up a trade window with a new player. I entered 1000 gold pieces, and hit accept, making the noob incredibly rich. I waited for his response which was, "Can I have more?". I put him on my ignore list and logged off for the last time. Guess I deserved that, karmic-ly speaking.

I think its going for more Sim flavor, which is fine by me. There are hordes of action MMOs out there, especially fantasy ones. There will of course be adventures, dungeons, world bosses and plenty of cool monsters to fight (Looking forward to being in that monster pool).

Its better to try something new and take a different route then the other games, wouldn't you agree?

I am very much against the global auction house. I think local markets (an IRL too I guess, at least for food) cause a much more interesting economy. I would like to see a trading post that settlements can build where there is a local auction house, but a global exchange make a boring economy.

I would like to see a system in place that lets well connected settlements acquire information about prices of items in other nearby settlements.

In EVE, you could see the price everywhere all at once, and while that made sense for that setting I think that we have an opportunity to make an interesting twist on merchanting and the information trade.

I'll have a Dwarven Smith and a Gnome Rogue(/Bard?).

My Character concept for the Dwarf is a Lawful Evil Smith that only sells his best creations to those who serve evil. He'll also have a small ammount of combat ability, and show the ropes to new adventurers when he has the chance (He thinks this sets him above other 'common' evil-doers).

My rogue? I think probably a chaotic neutral. I'll see where I feel like going with him, but he'll definatley be my adventuring character.

Forever Alone!

Hello there, my name is Rokolith I've been a gamer my whole life. Since we're going to have a tight-knit community that will be around for long stages of development, meaning we will probably spend considerable time waiting for game updates- I thought it would be a good idea if there was a threat we could just chat and get to know each other a bit, and maybe trace that steps that led us here.

When I was small, I played games for fun with my brother and some friends, we moved to Zimbabwe and went without TV and video games for a few years but eventually returned to the states.

When we got back as a present my parents got us an N64 and I played the first game that really blew me away, The Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time. The game has such an awesome atmosphere and is a cool game for a kid of any age. It really showed me what games were capable of.

The next game, and probably the game that means the most to me I experienced in middle school, Suikoden2 for the PS1. It has such an amazing storyline. A heroic tale of a young man who recruits people from all walks of life to join a rebel army to fight for freedom against an oppressive force from his own homeland. It was amazingly polished, deep and had all sorts of systems I had never seen in an RPG before, including a battle map where you controlled soldiers and units in a war simulation. PFO has so much to offer in terms of similarity. I've started my third playthrough of this game and its aged very well, I recommend it even now.

During highschool I played my first MMO, Runescape, which I thought was amazing at the time. Overall Runescape is alot of fun and sends you on interesting adventures with clever puzzles but the combat leaves something to be desired.

At the tail end of highschool I started doing some tabletop roleplaying and joined in the WoW craze. I really really liked that game, mostly for the atmosphere and music. It had so much potential at the start but it squandered it... and well, here we are with a game that may do what I whish WoW would have.

Well I think that's enough about me. I'd like to hear from you guys about you and your history of games. What games have you played that inspired you to back/follow the PFO project?

Personally the main reason I am waiting so eagerly on PFO has nothing to do with the fantasy setting. I am equally at home in a fantasy or Sci-Fi setting. It's how slow and hands off everything in EVE was.

EVE with a fantasy skin won't be as successful as EVE any more than WoW with a Star Wars skin was as successful as EVE.

I'm fine with with borrowing some of EVE's better features. We already have EVE's skill training, Open World PVP and Player Owned Structures, crafting style, contracts, and single server divided into shards.

At combat to the mix and not only will you most likely kill this game for me, but also people will very rightfully consider it an EVE clone.

If this game is at its very least EVE with a fantasy skin, I would be perfectly happy with that. for me, fantasy settings are much easier to relate to and immerse myself in. The ammount of fantasy vs other MMO settings I think is also a clear indicator of how popular the genre of MMO is.

I agree with the slowness but I think this game should and will be fairly hands off for large parts of the game, particularly the parts of the game they are hopeing to heighten player interaction. Making people part of the monster pool for example (Can't wait for that) will let the devs have the player be the monster, which is still meaningful player interaction.

Sandboxes aren't the same with the "adult" looking over your shoulder telling you how to build your castle. Not that you were advocating that, we agree on most points you brought up.

As far as the combat goes, I'm glad somebody was able to pull up that quote about stamina, I had forgotten that. Having slower paced tactical combat is really what I was getting at, and from what was quoted it seems that is in.

In other words, a system like that would guarantee that those who play the most and have built the strongest characters will dominate and bully everyone else.

If you plan on sitting at the top with the best character possible, I can definitely understand why you'd prefer a system like that. For the casual player it would be a complete nightmare as you could never go out in the countryside alone because of the super-strong PK bandits with superior characters and gear.

Much like in EVE, where your only hope is that the veterans you meet are too busy to bother killing you.

To me it makes perfect sense that a well trained, geared and skilled player would win combat engagements. If I've trained from day 1, have the best gear and have skill then yes, I should win every 1v1 engagement. I am wagering the most skillpoint loss and gear loss.

Its always a slippery slope from trying to take power from those who have put in the time and resources to making everybody a same-ey blah power level that barley changes and shows very little character advancement.

I have to give a nod to AOC for its awesome atmosphere. For all it's faults, you can just walk around a city in that game and feel like you're in another world.

This is a really cool idea. I plan on being lawful evil and it would totally go with my character concept to have reasons to hold esteem over the "common criminal", which are griefers more or less.

I have faith in Paizo to do tasteful female armor. The only characters that are in skimpy clothing are those who wear cloth. Looking through the core book the rogue and paladin characters are really good examples of it done well.

Sign me up! Plan on being a Dwarven Armorsmith.

As usual Andius, I agree wholeheartedly.

I am all about this kind of thing. As long as we have a cool name I'm in.

I'll be in from Alpha onward and I plan on playing primarily evil characters. My main character concept I will probably play is a Lawful Evil Dwarf Smith that only sells his finest goods to those who serve Evil. I'll be watching this thread to see how the name turns things progress.

After reading your post I changed my vote to pets.

I am literally putting the max amount of money into this project that I can afford and still live. I have as high hopes in this project as anything I've had in my life. Herre's too the upcoming years when we forge Pathfinder Online together!

P.S. I am doing this right now as I watch the kickstarter money rise http://multitudeofgifs.tumblr.com/post/24121982020

For those who are wandering around outside the dungeon, here is your music for adventure; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fw_sjlk1Gbw

You know what I would like to see are some climbing ledges like they had in Age of Conan. Being able actually climb up to something instead of teleporting to a higher or lower place was pretty cool.

Something I wanted to add to this list is a noncombat form of medium-length buffs that will give an adventurer an edge. Similar to entertainers in SWG Pre CU. I think it adds a great, if slightly forced reason to go visit a tavern with other adventurers to get a slight combat bonus.

Any system that requires adventurers to go to an inn, temple, fair (Pleasurehouse?) to recoup or prepare before an adventure is what I'd like to see.

I want to be the best Armorsmith in the land. I want to make armor so good, I send adventurers on quests just to earn a peice of my masterfully crafted armor.

Also will do a little low level adventuring and help out new players learn the ropes.

When I get in game my goal might change though, being a Mass Combat commander seems like a really cool role.

As for how I want the game to play... check out my thread; http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2p9ps?My-collage-of-game-features

I'm rather shocked at how many people here don't like jumping puzzles. I love them and enjoy the challenge.

If you could mix elements from other games together and distill them into Pathfinder Online, which features would you pick?

I sat down and pondered this question after watching
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eBkipKFocT0&feature=related (NSFW, a little language)
and this is what I came up with.

Character creation: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1WhOTrc5554

APB. APB had the best character creator I've ever seen. It let you adjust all of the usual body sliders we've come to expect but it also let you put tattoos and patterns on clothing. Being able to put your monk's tattoo's down his arms to his fists or giving your sorcerer and elaborate robe with magical sigils would be awesome. They also let you do this for all of your cars as well, but I don't really think our horses need to have bumper stickers on them :)

Combat: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wpTjwpFh0a4

EVE Online had methodical paced combat that allowed for alot of strategy. What I would like to see Pathfinder Online do is quick round-based combat, have everything move on a slightly slower pace and let tactical decisions carry more weight by giving your fewer, and more important choices than which instant cast to spam next.

Visuals and Exploration : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tgx0NBx4Pzo and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CsizA9lqqbA

Guild Wars 2 has the most amazing, sharp and breathtaking visuals I've ever seen in a long time. It may be not be a sandbox, but Arenanet are passionate game developers that really push the envelope. Their visual style is a close cousin of Pathfinder, and every time I go exploring I find something new and exciting in their world. There is a vibrant and exciting energy that you see in the game when you play guild wars 2. I saw a bit of that in the PFO Technology demo and can't wait for more! The main thing I'd love to see taken from Arenanet's playbook is the emergent gameplay it allows, secret locations and adventures far off the beaten path that really make the game special.

Music: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hq90bvH51oI Rik Shaffer or http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hq90bvH51oI Jeremy Soule or http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=78xB_GqLwPY Jason Hayes (Very unlikely)

These composers have produced the most amazing music for my favorite games. For me, music in games is the most important aspect. I find myself firing up old games just to listen to the beautiful soundtracks. All three of these composers have an outstanding talent in making music that carries mood. Having music that sets the mood correctly for a setting is the most important part of my immersion. Walking to Ashenvale on my nightelf was how I was turned on to the MMO genre, it felt like walking into another world. Also, as a special mention for combat music, the game Payday: The Heist had an awesome music system that adapted to the excitement of the moment and really put your head in the game.

Congrats for getting through my wall of text if you made it this far, here is your reward; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLYXv_VhB2g and this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ow4cC-Cz5l8 for you empire building types.

So now you've seen my shout-outs and whishes for what PFO could emulate. What games really nailed features that you would like to see made a reality in Pathfinder Online?

I used to be the highest pledge level.

*Sad Violin*

How I would like healing to work is how it works in the game Bloodline champions, with of course some modified mechanics for an MMO.

"Bloodlines Champions has an interesting solution to balance healing in PvP. Essentially, if you take a massive amount of damage and then are healed, a percentage of your total hit point pool becomes diminished, i.e. a small chunk of your hit point pool becomes gray.

Example:

[--------------] 1000 hit points, healthy and alive.
[------|-------] You're attacked and damaged to 40% hit points.
[-----------|||] You're healed but now your total hit pool is diminished by a small amount.
[----|||||||||] If your available hit point pool is diminished again below 40%, your hit point pool is further diminished.

In Bloodlines, once you're out of combat you can channel an ability to slowly recover your normal hit point total.

A player from their forums describes the mechanics better than I can:

"The healing cap system is pretty genius, actually. It forces you to burst targets down in large chunks of HP in short periods of time, meaning you need to burst away at least 41% of their HP in order to make a permanent mark. This encourages/rewards teamplay where you focus fire certain targets, rendering them unable to recover all of their HP.

Similarly, it prevents idle stalemates caused by teammates running away and healing up to full HP every 20 seconds. It encourages aggressive, offensive behavior rather than passive, defensive behavior.

Besides, without a healing cap, double and triple healer teams would be much stronger due to the amount of HP they could recover in such short bursts of time. This would lead to even longer stalemates when both teams utilize double and triple healer teams."

From a forum post on the Rift forums where somebody hilariously replies "Go back to FPS, this is a MMO, where healing is a major part of it. Seriously, take the QQ FPS League back, and stay away from the MMO genre, it is too hard for you."

Here is some footage of the game in action. What you are wathing for are the allied health bars, and how when they are healed, the part they were healed for is a different color that eventually turns grey. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=knjOBJW3Bfw

I really liked this mechanics in BLC, as it made healing a powerful tool, but not an all out requirement like it is for many games. It also makes the healer focus on using some offensive abilities to help end the fight, and keeps fights for dragging on for hours.

I could even see things like special higher level spells ignoring this mechanic and raising the maximum healed allowance or a high heal skill making the penalty diminish as well.

Made staying up that extra hour worth it! Now that we have a book and minis backing PFO, the kickstarter is going to explode!

If you're on the fence I would do the 35 level because its just a more cost-effective way to buy the game.

Gets you;
-The game
-Open Enrollment invite
-New player pack

I've supported many projects I was on the fence on following this principal: its being offered now for alot cheaper than it will be at release.

After a TON of internal debate and discussion we finally settled on the term "Crowdforging" to describe the process we're using to make you a central part of our development process!

We wanted to give recognition to @Rokolith and @Kryvnus who gave us inspiration to coin this term. @Rokolith suggested "Crowdlaunching" and @Kryvnus suggested "Community Forge".

In recognition, we're going to make both @Rokolith and @Kryvnus Goblin Squad members (if they're not already!)

Thanks to everyone who made suggestions. They were so much fun to read and to talk about!

Here's to many many years of Crowdforging ahead!

Wow, that is awesome. If I wan't already a Crowdforger Alpha I would probably upgrade.

My biggest problem is that a tech demo produced in 2012 looks not that much better than World of Warcraft pre-alpha videos. Not to mention that it's coming out in FOUR YEARS.

MMO is a dying genre. WoW still keeps strong, but only because he was #1 for a long period of years. Almost every other MMO went F2P (SW:TOR, recently) because they were losing subscribers drastically and that's basically the sign that it's doing badly. And all that because they don't offer anything new.

Now, Pathfinder Online will come out in 2016 and they haven't offered us anything never before seen. What I see is combination of WoW and EVE. While the premise is intresting, I don't believe it will be that good in four years.

So, they have a company that never made any other games, terrible release scheldue, no novel ideas, this is their second Kickstarter project for the same thing... Golarion is the only setting I play in PnP for the past 3-4 years and I can't see myself even glancing at this game.

Not sure if you're trolling or not, but I'll take a moment to answer your post.

A pre-alpha trailer is far different than a technology demo. That would be like taking a look at what Goblinworks has produced by next year this time. Secondly, Blizzard was a long established company with 3 games already in it's franchise, all of the art, sound and manpower assets at their disposal. That video was from far farther into their development cycle than PFO, please adjust your expectations accordingly.

"According to the analysts, worldwide spending on MMOs will top $12 billion this year, and that's not all: The companies also predict that this number will increase to a whopping $17.5 billion in 2015." See com/trend-reports/mmo-trend-report/ and http://massively.joystiq.com/2012/07/12/report-global-mmo-spending-to-top-1 2-billion-in-2012/ . I agree that SWTOR Warhammer, Rifts is that they tried very little new. I played all of these theme-park WoW-clones that offered very little new.

But PFO will be one of a very small but much anticipated genre of MMO; Sandbox. The most successful of the Sandbox MMOs being EVE online. Sandboxes are unique that instead of designing a large ammount of linear content for the players to visit it gives the players a large degree of control of resources in the world and allows player interaction to be the main feature. Very few games have been able to even launch that attempt to do this in a non-space setting. If you want to see an example of a bad attempt, see Mortal Online.

If you want to see why you should be excited about PFO, my advice isn't to look at what has been done so far. Not to diminish the tech demon, it was nice for what it is, but it didn't really blow me away either. What should draw you to this game is the passion that the Goblinworks staff have poured out for the game, even this early in the development. Happy meat is good meat and Passionate developers equals juicy game. Another mark for innovation comes from the Crowdforging aspect, no other game has had players and backers have this level of imput on the growing project. Its a process and journey that will no doubt be very fun.

As far as not liking the release schedule... I'm wondering what you think would be better? Do you want the game next month and empty? Goblinworks has outlined what is a very reasonable plan for development and launch. Even if they Kickstarter only just passes, they will release by 2016. Production on WoW began in 1999, which means they made their game in more time than Goblinworks is asking to make PFO, its hardly unreasonable.

As far as your lack of faith in Goblinworks and confusion about the Kickstarters... The first Kickstarter was for a technology demo to show to investors in order to generate interest for PFO. The second Kickstarter is for the game itself. The fact that the first kickstarter blew it's target away and the second one is rising quickly, you'd think a person who likes pathfinder would be inspired by that... but you're not and infact the opposite.

If you don't like how things have gone so far, despite the reality being very positive and quite inspiring, maybe this isn't the place for you.

Awesome!