Valkenr's page

I can see it being very difficult for the game to sense when a war is 'just', there can be obvious triggers, like group A killing X members of group B outside of group A's territory over Y days, where X and Y are outside of normal interactions.

Alignment should play a role. Good and lawful shouldn't be able to declare war against anyone with no drawback. Good organizations should only be able to target evil organizations with no/little penalty, and lawful should only be able to target chaotic with no/little penalty.

EA has the opposite of the Midas Touch when it comes to MMOs.

I know I'll have a LE character, so there will be some push for evil support in TSV.

We wouldn't reject you at TSV, we have no alignment restrictions, our pursuit is knowledge. I'm not exactly sure what is going on with shadow haven, I think it's more of an idea at the moment, Ravening is part of TSV and if Shadow Haven is created it will bud off from us.

It's up to you to decide who to join, I'm not sure what you are trying to accomplish with this post, register on the organizations forums, talk to them and see who you like best.

I personally would like all stats to remain hidden, I don't like the atmosphere created by too much knowledge, everything becomes about maximizing builds, over-calculating encounters, and comparing stat pages on websites. I like to learn through experimentation, and the knowledge I gain elsewhere was the result of someone else's experimentation.

I don't want somebody to link their killboard to show their ability, I want their reputation to spread by word of mouth. If someone wants attention, they should really have to work for it, not be one of the top 50 when you filter by kill rating.

I don't want to ever feel like I need to be going to some website, or using some application to effectively build my character. I want everything about the game to occur in two places, the PFO website and in-game, and possibly in a smartphone app created by GW.

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I would like to see in-game interactions where you can determine the physical properties of things, in the style of the game-universe. measuring things like weight, purity, and dimensions. This would be done by going to a shop or lab, and interacting with various devices, like a scale, or using a chemical to determine the purity of a substance. There could even be training grounds, where you can test your character's ability to find how fast you are with a weapon. There can even be skills tied to this, and characters could specialize in finding this information for other players, or constructing this equipment.

The bottom line would be that you can't go somewhere online and find how you will do, or how you are doing, you need to go test your self in a controlled environment.

There is no huge ISK sink when you get blown up, there are some fees associated with crafting/marketing, the major drain is an item drain, which traces back to raw materials.

Nothing that would seriously alter the value of ISK. The insurance payout probably brings in a comparable amount of isk, to that which was drained by various fees while creating the ship.

You know how much stamina you have, you know how much stamina your abilities cost. Find the combinations that use your entire bar. If you aren't getting the combinations off, you need improvement, if you are getting the combinations off, you are doing fine.

I would be surprised if this game doesn't have a 'queue up' for the next attack, so you don't have to hit an ability right on the nose, just before the previous ability finishes.

The system you describe is good for twitch games, where player dexterity is a large factor. Ryan doesn't seem to want this game to rely largely on player dexterity.

I'm not sure how valuable this data would be over looking at the item and character stats. Unless Ryan has decided to change his stance on twitch combat, accuracy is determined by a comparison between you and your target.

For what you want to know, I don't think they need to go any further than applying character modifiers and showing the final build stats in-game.

The player spending less time per week playing and making it up by dropping PLEX is causing equipment to leave the world and bringing ISK into the world (via insurance). He is also causing ISK to go from PVPers to builders by purchasing equipment, and from PLEX buyers to himself.

Where is the ISK drain?

Clones, Private Messaging, Fleet Creation, Insurance that expires, Repairs, If you do any Planetary Interaction everything costs, and every purchase made on the market removes a percentage.

Casual players don't, and shouldn't see much of a drain, the large drains are for the players who accumulate a lot of wealth, and large organizations.

PLEX doesn't devalue ISK, it devalues lower tier items. Though this seems to only effect high traffic markets, everywhere else keeps prices low. I doubt the prices of multi-billion isk items have gone up more than they do with general inflation.

EVE wouldn't be what it is without PLEX, it gives casual players a way to keep their equipment up with their skills, and it gives people a chance to play for free.

Any negative effect PLEX has caused are minimal to its benefits.

There were only 6-7000 accounts reserved in the kickstarter, so GW is giving all backers who pledged crowdforger or higher first month access, though I'm not sure how that will factor into upgrades, though I'm guessing they will let them also go into the first month.

Those costs are not higher because of PLEX, they are high because players learn to game the system. They find the quickest way to make the most money, and overload the market with isk, lowering its value. What you are describing is regular inflation in any game. If you compare isk in 2006 and now, you will find that the value of isk lower now. Same outcome as the $, but for a different reason.

I think the real problem people have with connecting real money to game money is that someone is gaining benefits for no other reason than they have excess money in their game budget. People didn't like PLEX because it allowed new players to sidestep the hard work the vets went through.

I want the game to be a flat subscription model with no cash shop, but that's not how to be profitable in the current game market. There are too many games out there, and nobody can hold enough players to make enough with subscriptions alone.

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Everyone wants to be the uncommon exception to the rule but in the end, you just wind up with exceptions that outnumber the rule.

This describes every game community, the vast majority of the ideas are people wanting to do certain things without thinking what it would be like if everyone could do those things. It's like the people that want a PvP toggle, but still want a thriving economy not plagued by inflation. In the end, the people really want their character to be special, and everyone else to supply the proper world around them.

From "A Three Headed Hydra"

Consumable Slots

F3 and F4 are for consumable items like potions and scrolls.

I'm guessing things like ammo(spell components) will have an auto-reload toggle, as EvE has, and the ability to right click>>select from available ammo in bag.

I haven't seen anything to lead me to believe there will be long term consumable buffs, but if there are, I think it is up to the player to keep those rolling, they should be aware of how long these buffs last, and realize that they shouldn't enter a 5 minute fight with 3 minutes left on the buff and either wait the 5 minutes, or re-buff early.

If it's just busy work stuff, like consuming food because the game says you need to make your character eat, I think a repeat button voids the purpose, and they should just put a money sink elsewhere.

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@Decius, I think nonzero is better than zero, but it shouldn't reduce to basically zero. I in general hate diminishing returns, especially when they reduce something to a point is is no longer useful. I don't want to see the outcome diminish to more than 50% of it's starting value. The only place I like diminishing returns, is in Crowd control, because perma-locking isn't fun.

I don't want to see a number that determines if someone is grinding or not. I've never though of repeatedly running normal missions as 'grinding', by my definition 'grinding' is the rounding up of mass amounts of NPCS to kill with AOE attacks. In some games this can be done in missions by running 'solo groups' or using built in systems to inflate your mission difficulty.

I really want to see no diminishing of any rewards. I think saying "it takes 800 hours of missions to go from 0 to full 'Good'", is better than "It takes 400 days playing 2 hours a day to go from 0-full". Progression shouldn't be based on how much you play, not how often. If two people play the game 10 hours a week, but one does it Monday-Friday for 2 hrs a night, and the other does it Saturday and Sunday for 5hrs/day, they should both see the same rewards.

I am fine with having missions say 'magnitude 100 lawful shift', and the shift is smaller, the higher your alignment. People can shift in and out of low rank alignment relatively quickly, but you need a higher rank to get the more useful benefits of the alignment.

I got slightly confused in that original quote and shouldn't have included Good vs. Evil. The current idea is:

• You gain Law over time but can turn that off if you want to stay Chaotic.
  
• You gain Good by doing certain PvE actions like quests (probably at a restricted daily rate to keep people from just grinding all the way from Evil to good in a marathon session). You can remain Evil by not doing these actions.
  

The idea is that Good vs. Evil is much more of a roleplaying and PvE choice, while Law vs. Chaos is something that even players that primarily PvP need a way to recover.

Please no limits, a player should never run into a situation where they stop receiving rewards for actions they enjoy doing. And no asymptotes inside of possible boundaries. If someone wants to keep running 'good' missions all day, they should be able to, after 20 or so missions, the rewards diminish. People who play a lot should get the same fulfilment through their entire session. The limit should be based on how long it takes to move form quest to quest.

I think the key is to make the time required to maximize an alignment long term, like the skill progressions. It should take months to move from TN to NG. The 'marathon grinder' would still take months to shift, and the casual player will probably take a year.

The character should always be moving forward, and never stopped. They can be slowed down, but not so much that it feels like being stopped.

It may also be worth it to start increasing other rewards once alignment rewards start diminishing, to keep the total value of running missions constant.

I like the ideas in this blog, but it seems doomed to failure. Wrote this over a few separate sittings, so sorry if it's repeats of what has already been said.

Unless the game is forcing random names on everyone, the disguised name system will eventually get figured out. It could work great for a while, but eventually people will start to recognize which names are original, and which are generated. Players should be able to set their own disguise names, and tailor their new identity based on how high their skills are. A player should be able to create a disguise that is indistinguishable from a normal character, and can only be revealed by super advanced skills.

It seems like the 'Being Observed' mechanic will hurt the profession, the 'spread paranoia' idea is all well and good, but the big organizations will lock up and do a role call when a single person gets that debuff. I think perception should be the key defense against assassinations. If people get the 'Being Observed' debuff there should be some way for the assassin to get past OOG verification methods, like appearing to be a wandering NPC, and these NPCs wander EVERYWHERE in the settlement, including inside EVERY building and IN AND OUT of the settlement for seamless entry.

The development index thing seems nice, but it raises a question on how the game will handle offline players. I don't think it is fair to keep characters in game and at risk at all times, and I don't want to see indexes only seeing a bonus while the character is in game, features that greatly award high play times drive a spike in the community between the casual, and heavy players. A Master craftsman shouldn't get turned down for a position running a crafting index, simply because they only play 3 days a week for a few hours. What is going to stop these index leaders from logging off during sensitive times, and only logging in under heavy protection?

This also seems like it could be abused to halt other organizations from gaining a foothold in the game. One thing that will keep new players away is knowing they will have to affiliate with existing organizations to gain a foothold in the game. There should be mechanics that prevent perma-locking a settlement, except in a time of war, and I would like to see a war system very different from EvE, you shouldn't just be able to randomly pick people and exploit the war tool for PvP in lawful areas.

I'm also curious where the perception vs. stealth balancing will end up. This is the paradox that every game has, stealth is fun and all for early and mid game, there are always people passing eachother up, but once you get to the end of the line there are only a few possible outcomes for the end-game.
1. Stealth can go higher than perception, stealth becomes overpowered
2. Stealth can go higher than perception, but is next to useless, and can only be used in very specific situations
3. Perception can get greater than or equal to stealth, and stealth becomes useless in high-level play, and is mostly used to abuse lower level players.

I prefer option 1 with the highest levels being absurdly difficult to obtain, the Master Assassins should deserve the ability to use indistinguishable disguises and take down a settlements production single handed. I want stealth to be viable at the highest levels of play, and I don't think I have ever seen a system where this was both possible, and not tedious. There should be a 'hump' that assassins have to get over(that is much larger than most others), and after they pass this hump their job becomes easier.

I think the blog is a step in the right direction but not all the way there. Stealth and assassinations are probably going to be the most variable system for the development and early life of the game.

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Summersnow wrote:

Nihimon wrote:

Not to mention that playing on a PvP server would be incredibly boring, so the players there would begin clamoring for "More Content!", which is exactly the dynamic that Ryan is trying to avoid by creating a sandbox where player interaction is the content.

Sorry, this made me laugh :-p

I think you meant PvE :-)

I did. Dagnabbit.

It works with PvP, because if there was a PvE server, almost all people that can tolerate PvP, but prefer PvE would go play there, and the PvP server would become a gank fest, everyone would get bored, and ask for more content because the 'players are content' is now boring.

Would a radial distance system, where effects diminish the farther they are from the burst center, impose an unsustainable burden on the server?

I don't think it would be much of a burden, just another line of code checking distances(which is probably already being done to determine a 'hit') and scaling them by whatever equation GW chooses for the ability. Instead of 'deals 500 damage' you have 'deals 5*(distance/4) damage'

"Interference" of spells: Reminded me of my old physics lessons: Interference (wave propagation)

It's solid concept/lore reason for magic.

So with good timing people could make their attacks more powerful!

The problem here is abuse, and at a certain point you just have to accept that it is going to happen. It will turn into something like DRM, it ends up causing more trouble for honest players.

AOE has to be in the game, it is a huge part of combat, especially large scale combat. In a large battle, a good chunk of enemies should be taken down with large powerful AOE attacks(most likely from seige engines)

I can see merits for having full-FF in the game, but it opens the door to much more abuse than non-FF, or selective-FF. You have magic as an explanation for anything, so you can really do anything. I suggest having selective FF that is disabled by default. You get a toggle called 'intent' that allows you do damage other non-flagged players. You can easily say that some god has blessed everyone making it so they cannot harm each other without expressing the will to do so, and I find that no more lore-breaking than PvP flags, and soul binding.

AoE where you have to carefully plan its placement is for the tabletop, where you have a good chunk of time to assess the outcome, can easily see what is in your target-area, and another character is not going to glitch across your target-area.

Here's what I think:

This game is centered around war, in RL medieval war, you didn't sit back and fire single attacks, you fired giant rocks, flaming oil balls, or a volley of arrows. then once the lines get close enough to each other you break into melee combat to avoid killing your own men(most of the time). AoE attacks should be devastating and effective with a single target. If you throw a bomb next to someone, it should do descent damage, as should lighting a fire on the ground around them.

I HATE diminishing returns when it comes to BASE damage or healing, the only place I think it belongs is in crowd control and additional effects, because permalock is no fun, and being set on fire 5 times may make it worse, but the first application had the greatest effect.

The in-game justification for diminishing returns has a hole, it doesn't account for physical objects.

I don't think it is correct to say AoE is only good with 3 or more targets, maybe with a targeted explosion, but there are more types of aoe than that and they can come in different shapes and sizes. Every attack should more or less be equal, they may have different advantages, but in every attack with the same magnitude of advantage, the cost should be the same. What you end up with is single target attacks that do much higher damage or have much stronger effects than their AoE counterparts. I.E. Fireball deals 100 damage per target with a 5m radius, a more concentrated fireball witha 3m radius would deal 200 damage per target, a single target fire beam deals 500 damage to the target, and all of them cost the same.

Bomarding with AOE attacks should be how every fight starts, it's logical. Caravans shouldn't stand shoulder to shoulder while moving goods, they should spread out enough not to all die if they are bombarded.

AoE attacks should be more commonly used, there will always be a need for single target attacks. In Warhammer Online, I had my Bright Wizard(fire bomb AoE spike & dot) and my Shadow Hunter(long range archer), they had a system similar to what I described above, my brightwizard could put out a ton of damage, but my shadow hunter was the one that got the kills. AoE is easier to use, but single target attacks can take out specialized targets, and overwhelm healing effects.

As for DOT's and addition effects, they should simply re-apply when someone get hits again, and in the case of something like fire or acid, the additional 'stacks' should have diminishing returns.

P.S. If I want to roleplay as a Buddhist or make up the religion of Greedalox, then having alignments give me limited access to how I would roleplay. Maybe I worship a mad god that is 1 part LG and 2 parts CE

When you roleplay you are constrained by your toolset, in this case you have the official pathfinder toolset. RPing a buddhist, or any fictional construct outside of core pathfinder lore isn't possible within the constraints of PFO, and there should not be any effort by GW to make things like that possible.

I know Im being...... difficult. But who determines if someone has or hasnt been naughty? I mean for instance my truth might not be yours. If each of us worships different one true gods of light, then "obviously" my god is the correct one and you are a pagan, heretic, blasphemer that deserves to burn in hell no? So I hire an assassin to send you there, and from my point of view it was justice. So a death curse is par for the course......

BLASPHEMER!!! :b

In the world of pathfinder every action is tied to an alignment, there is no point of view, or difference of opinion. Right and wrong are divinely written, and there is no way to subvert them. There is no 'one true god' the world of pathfinder is polytheistic, and the gods interact with the inhabitants of the universe.

This makes it so GW can code every action in the game to a certain alignment shift. If you kill for no reason, you are evil, if you act against a law you are chaotic. Just because you don't agree with the 2000 coin tax doesn't mean you won't shift chaotic if you don't pay it.

The tricky bit about disguises is that Ryan has mentioned hiding things from only certain players is very hard to do.

The disguise check is just like a stealth check, except you can see, target and attack them if you don't know who they are.

If they don't show nameplates, all it takes to create a disguise is changing clothes. Not even hiding your face, just putting on a blue shirt instead of a brown one. You (as a player) will not be able to recognize people by their faces.

The player doesn't do the recognizing, the game does. It does the skill checks, and if your character should recognize someone, their nameplate appears.

So if you are in a bar, and see a bunch of wanted posters, there is a chance you will recognize the people on those posters if you run into them in the wild.

@Nihimon
The memory system would need some good testing, the average player wouldn't need to use it, or at most only train the first few skills. It is mainly for people who want to make lots of connections, or 'secret service' type guards that are built to be hyper vigilant and need to dozens of 'wanted' faces committed to memory. The memory skill for most would be a gauge of how well you know them, the higher your memory skill and the more you interact with somebody, the harder it is for them to hide from you.

I don't see why it would take a lot of training to disguise your self. Something like a hooded robe with a black screen would hide your face. I can see makeup/prosthetic based disguises take a long time to master, I could work like temporary version of SWG's Image Designer. There is also magical disguise.

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I know this has been discussed before, but I want to create a new thread with ideas based on current information. This community is very prone to forming ideas and not changing them with the new announcements.

I do not want the game to display everyone character name, you should have to do a /greet and pick and choose what a person can see. Then you can set a custom nameplate that will show when you character can determine their identity.

I think it is very important to have a way to hide your identity. There should be collection of skills tied into recognizing people and identifying things about someone. Here's a few ideas: 'Recognition', 'Identification', 'Body language',and 'Memory'. each can have a few advanced skills to refine certain aspects.

Memory determines how many people you can remember, I don't know what the max should be but the idea is that you can only have information on so many people(and possibly locations and items if GW wants to go super complex) in your memory, and new memories diminish older ones. The more you interact with someone the higher they remain in your current memory. The higher a person is in your memory the easier it is to recognize them, but the more memory they take up. People in your lower memory aren't easy to recognize, but when you do recognize them you get more information than if you just met someone.

Journals can be used to record current memories, but are volatile inventory and must be threaded. When you read a journal entry it brings back the desired memory.

Identification determines how munch you can learn about someone by looking at them. a basic character(minus any racial bonuses) /identify a person and get back their height weight and race, while more advanced trained characters may get information on what they are carrying(on the outside, swords, daggers, jewelry) and maybe attribute scores to see what kind of skills they are focusing(tied into the change in appearance Ryan has talked about)

Recognition ties in with memory to strengthen the ability to recognize people in your memory.

Body Language determines how well you can tell if someone is lying, when you formally meet a player you choose what information you want to share, and can modify what you share to create lies. If you see someone told you a lie, you can call them out, or make a note that they lied to you.

Deception determines how well you can lie. The effectiveness of this ability is increased by your Body Language skill. The idea being that if you know what not to do, you are a better liar.

I want players to be able to hide from their friends. There should be things like masks and cloaks that give you 100% disguise, and there should be abilities to unmask players, as well as masks that strap on tightly(same logic as a sword chained to your gauntlet). If you kill a player(or just see the corpse) you can see their face, and if you see them again, you will recognize them.

Organizations can have insignia that characters can turn on to overtly show their relationship so people can tell who is in what organization, and the insignia can be another thing you put in your memory. And these insignia can be see either by talking to a player, or seeing it posted somewhere in-game.

~just some semi-organized ideas

Anonymity and Disguise

Valkenr wrote:

Any action that reduces a players ability to play the game, like a skill penalty is a huge no-go area, the community that wants something like that is too small to market to. removing someone from an area is one thing, making it so they can't function as well is entirely different.

Not sure how small that group is actually. In a time of war I would pay to have an enemy commander assassinated and bumped from their nearest bind spot specifically to make it so they can't function well and to remove them ,as much as possible, from being able to play.

I think there will be more of these sorts of instances then you might think, players intentionally desiring to reduce others ability to play.

I'm talking about things like:

- The target doesn't deal as much damage for 1 hour
- The target has 50% less HP for 1 hour
- The target loses 50% mining efficiency on all their owned installations
- the target is forced to play in xxx zone, which may or may not have the activity they want to do.

It is the same logic as why CC abilities are short duration, most people don't want to lose control of their character for more than a moment.

Taking someone out of a battle is not 'reducing their ability to play', their mechanical ability is still intact, the just have to work their way back to the fight and make it past the enemy lines.

In war taking someone out of a fight is a necessary option, otherwise it is just becomes spawn camping.

Assuming major bind points(no threads needed) are few and far between, taking out an assassination contract on someone you want out of the zone you are in would effectively keep them away for a while. If they are running a harvesting operation, they will probably get overrun while they are away, or you can go take it over.

Any action that reduces a players ability to play the game, like a skill penalty is a huge no-go area, the community that wants something like that is too small to market to. removing someone from an area is one thing, making it so they can't function as well in entirely different.

thus I want it to be added

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The current assassin ability is consequence enough. It gives organizations the ability to take people out of a fight, when they would otherwise re-spawn and get back into the battle. One thing I would add is that assassins cant be placed on enemy lists.

Severing equipment threads should only be for death curses. Threads are there to protect honest players. The thread system is pointless if you have a chance to lose items you want to protect. If you are playing under the Rules of Engagement GW defines, your equipment threads should be safe.

I only hate the F2P model and cash shops(or any form of additional purchasing) because I am their favorite kind of customer. I always sink way to much money into those games. Thus I love games that charge a $15 subscription and sell nothing else(aside from character renames/server transfers). I don't think I have ever played a F2P/cash-shop title without putting in more than $15/mo.

There are two types of 'pay to win'.
1. You can only play to level XX, without paying a subscription
2. There are more powerful items in the cash-shop than you can get in the game.

There are plenty of 1's, but not many 2's. MMO's are massively multiplayer, and F2P games provide a large population for paying players to interact with. The thing that sucks about subscription games is when the servers die, and you don't have anyone to interact with, going F2P brings in people to interact with.

IMO everything should be available to every player and no item in the cash-shop should be more powerful than anything obtainable through regular gameplay. The non-paying players supply of 'top tier' items should not be dependent on the paying players. One way is to make every item sellable in-game, but you would end up with 10 $5 items that all go for different prices, then the market gets flooded with the $5 item that sells the best. I think PFO should let players sell skymetal in-game, but for reasons I can't understand, Ryan doesn't want to do this.

One thing I don't like is items that label you as a cash-shop user, or items that obviously show you spent $50 on some fluff. I know I'm not the only person that has passed up purchasing something I wanted because It would cast me in a negative light to some people I play with. I think a F2P title would make more money if there were no items that labeled you as a heavy cash-shop user, because they are all obtainable by trading in-game currency for cash-shop currency.

randomwalker wrote:

My latest impression was that you can build up xp and use that to buy skills at the trainer. If so, there is no need to manage the skill queue when offline since you do not "waste any sub".

However my impression was also that trainers will/may have limited capacity, but we need more info to tell whether that means in terms of needing to plan your training.

Yes this may be so, but I would still like to manage my skills when I am away from my computer.

There isn't any offline 'managing' to be done. Skill training involves going to a physical location in the game, and each location does not offer the same training. The closest thing would be a character planner, and there will be a handful of apps made by other people. Goblinworks doesn't need to spend resources on something the community is going to create.

ubscription. You won't even have to be using a Skill Training Kit.

Is that true in Eve? Or do you have to have an active subscription (or an active PLEX) to log in and play?

You have to have an active subscription to log in.

And plex costs more than a subscription. They make more money when people are playing for free.

Should armor wearers be allowed to swim well if they will remove their plate and stow their shield?

Or even those heavy flowing robes that become so waterlogged and tangled they would drown a character as surely as full chainmail would?

1. Wet cloths are not heavier in water. It is the same effect of getting cloths 'wet' with air. coarse and lightly woven Clothing causes drag with decreases swim speed, which doesn't seriously effect your ability to float. As for getting tangled, you are probably having trouble walking if your robes go down that far.

2. People swim in chain mail, it's called a shark bite suit.

Every person can swim with a different weight based on their physical strength and personal buoyancy. This is a place in the game where I would like to see some physics simulated, every piece of armor should have a weight and buoyancy. If the weight in water is higher than the character can handle, the character sinks, and slowly drowns if they don't get their armor off in time, which they can then go retrieve piece by piece at the bottom of whatever they were swimming in. Weight would also effect swim speed. And clothing can be given a drag coefficient.

The NPE will be largely influenced by the EE crowdforgers. There will probably be some direction in where to go, but the main thing the game needs to do is funnel people into existing charters.

Sandboxes really aren't for the weak of mind, you should be comfortable looking at a chart like that and doing a bit of research before you step into a sandbox. I think RSI has a good idea, where they are making a campaign precursor to the sandbox, but I don't think something like that will be in GW's budget.

I agree with Mirkk, in hoping that what PVE content there is, that it be more then just kill 10 x of this, or it will expand and now you have to kill 20 x...

list

That is an example of what works in the PnP but not a MMO, a GM can describe a scene and lead the player towards certain inferences. It's too detailed for what has to be a randomly generated coinsurance. What you outlined would be a good side mission for a single player game.

To translate that chain of events into an MMO, I strike the moral dilemma, and have the goblins steal a randomly targeted storage cache. In the aftermath settlement officials can create a contract to track down these goblins and recover the missing goods.

Valkenr wrote:

...

Being, you are understaing the interaction with PvE content. Every structure will be under constant PVE threat, that includes harvesting operations, inns, settlements, watchtowers, etc.. If PvE threats are not dealt with regularly, they increase in magnitude. They won't be making a 'few' dungeons, dungeons will be everywhere, and will be a major flow of resources. In order for PvP to be meaningful, there has to be a strong focus on PvE.

Well, you can hope, Valkenr, but I think that is all you have there. I don't think it will fall out the way you think it will.

They don't intend to sink a hundred million into building the themepark it sounds like you expect.

You don't need a hundred million, you just need a descent number of variables to randomly assemble into a dungeon plan. I don't expect every dungeon, or even every hex to be hand crafted. If you have 10 dungeons, 10 rewards, and 10 enemy groups, you just made 1000 dungeons with 3 variables. If you split the dungeon design into 10 sections that have 10 possibilities you now have 10^12 possible dungeons. It doesn't take a lot of work to make a lot of random PvE content.

Ryans Themepark comment is at about directed storyline, and 100 hours of missions. I had more fun in SWGemu than I did in SW:TOR and SWGemu was randomly generated.

Valkenr wrote:

There will be plenty of PvE content, it is how you get stuff into the game. There will probably be a very strong PvE focus, I'm guessing most groups will find it easier to get stuff on their own, then to try and steal it from other players.

The catch, is that in the good dungeons(super), and while out defending your encampment, players can also be attacking you.

From the sound of things so far, PvE combat may not be the direct source of much stuff, at least not finished, ready-to-use stuff. It sounds like player-made gear will be more common than looted gear. PvE enemies seem more likely to drop damaged equipment that can be salvaged than swords +1.

Would you consider gathering/mining/etc to be PvE content? So far, it sounds like resource gathering and crafting will be the major source of finished goods.

PvE is the origin of all coin and resources. PvE rewards will never be usable equipment, it will either be salvageable, or raw material, this was stated in the If I Had A Hammer blog. And looting a usable item from a player will be rare, I believe most gear will bought from crafters, than looted from other players.

I do consider gathering/mining PvE. In PFO PvP is a constant possibility except while inside a dungeon(or module if/when they are implemented). This is really a issue of interpretation, PvP to me is when to parties are in direct confrontation. I don't consider an activity PvP just because the possibility is there, because that possibility is everywhere. Mining triggers PvE interactions, as does dropping a structure, so I see them as PvE content.

PFO's current plan: mostly player generated content (settlement building and PvP), a light sprinkling of actual quests and dungeon crawls.

Does that context shed any light on this topic for you?

There will be plenty of PvE content, it is how you get stuff into the game. There will probably be a very strong PvE focus, I'm guessing most groups will find it easier to get stuff on their own, then to try and steal it from other players.

The catch, is that in the good dungeons(super), and while out defending your encampment, players can also be attacking you.

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I know they plan to have an Alpha purchase available to start the further crowdfunding.

I know they plan to have the dual training available, which will only be a free thing in the very beginning and for kickstarters. After that it will cost.

I don't know how you can 'know' either of these things.

To my knowledge neither has been stated by GW.

We 'know' that GW MAY sell destiny's twin accounts for a limited time. But I think that would be unwise. GW does not need to create extra incentives like they did in the kickstarter. Each destiny's twin account can be seen as a lifetime sub that GW lost. They stand to make more money if they just sell pre-purchases.

IMO they should pick the remaining alpha slots from the community, they need more than just people who can dish out cash to test their game.

Here's what I would set up:

1. EE Pre-Order Digital Collectors Edition($100)
-Digital copy of the game
-3 months of game time
-Entry to Early Enrollment(first come first serve)
-Player pack
-Alliance Pack
-Soundtrack download
-Behind the Scenes PDF
-Goblin Squad Membership

2. EE Pre-Order Standard ($50)
-Digital copy of the game
-1 month of game time
-Player Pack
-Goblin Squad membership

3. OE Pre-Order Digital Collectors Edition($80)
-Digital copy of the game
-2 months of game time
-Player pack
-Alliance Pack
-Soundtrack download
-Behind the Scenes PDF
-Goblin Squad Membership

Addons:
1. Class Pack ($10)
2. Honorable Title ($10)
3. Player Pack ($15)
4. Regional Trait Pack ($15)
5. Alliance Pack ($20)
6. Twice-Marked of Pharasma ($20)
7. Three Months of Game Time ($35)
8. 1 Year of Game Time ($120)

I left off the misfeatures re-paints, because those should only be available to kickstarters, along with the limited runs of the Print pack. People can get the regular miniatures that already exist, and the books when they are released to the general public. And the Memorial and Hellknights aren't there because they involve permanent in-game recognition, which should be exclusive to kickstarters.

All other kickstarter rewards I didn't mention, should be only available to people who pledged, and obtained by increasing their donation with the fulfillment tool.

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That all being said, PFO is going to be free to play, so you can check it out without forking over any of your cash, see if it's something you like, and if it is then great! If not, ok, different strokes for different folks. Point is you are not out anything but your time.

This is a common misconception that is simply not true. You won't be able to pick up the game for free and play it like everyone else, you will have no training and not be able to experience the game in any sensible capacity.

PFO has the possiblity to earn 'game time' through gameplay, but there is still a money barrier before you can play for free. It's not like DDO/SWTOR/DCUO where you can level up most/all of the way. You have to put money into the game to start your character.

Also, unless I am mistaken, we have never been told there will not be a 'box cost'. Kickstarter rewards included a 'digital downloadable copy of the game', so I'm guessing there will be a 'box cost'.

IMO a money barrier is crucial to any mmo to maintain a healthy community, and not have a constant flow of lightly used accounts throwing off your usage data.

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I haven't seen anything that leads me to believe that PvE will not have a strong focus. PvE is how items and money get into the game, and there are diminishing returns for looting players(items get destroyed). There will need to be an equal or greater PvE focus to keep a healthy market. Though some PvE will have PvP tied into it.

Being, you are understaing the interaction with PvE content. Every structure will be under constant PVE threat, that includes harvesting operations, inns, settlements, watchtowers, etc.. If PvE threats are not dealt with regularly, they increase in magnitude. They won't be making a 'few' dungeons, dungeons will be everywhere, and will be a major flow of resources. In order for PvP to be meaningful, there has to be a strong focus on PvE.

I don't see the concern, we have no reason to believe the lines between hexes will have any meaning or measure of territory control. What we know is that the cost of expansion increases exponentially. At a certain point, it will cost more coin than exists in the game to increase your territory. I would like to see that number be less than 10 hexes.

IF they did another KS I'm not sure what the incentive would be, 3 years development is as fast as it should go. And they could just do what RSI is doing and sell through their own services to the same effect, minus KS fees.

Founders are also part of the goblin squad, they will be notified before the general public when EE access is sold.

People were told time and time again that participation in the first kickstarter would not give you a copy of the game, or EE access, unless you pledged at the alpha level. If you thought you would get more, you were not paying attention. If you pledged at the founder level in the first kickstarter, and couldn't afford the $100 for Crowdforger Pioneer in the second kickstarter 6 months later, you probably shouldn't have blown $250 just to get a forum icon and a coin.

I would not expect there to be an 'end' of early support chances. When GW starts selling EE spots, I imagine it will be first come, first serve, and not stop until they sell every slot. I would imagine a majority of the prospective players want to see how the game plays out, and plan to join midway into EE. This will be one of the longest "beta" phases, just behind Minecraft.

I'm not opposed to founders getting first shot whenever EE access opens up, but they shouldn't be given anything freely.

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It is not GW or Paizo's fault that you did not do proper research.

Using words like 'Fraud' and calling KS backers 'investors' may work to get a rise out of general voting population, but we are more refined here and can see a steaming pile when it is dropped before us.

Can we get these posts replaced with the word 'twadle' so someone doesn't read them and think they carry any factual accuracy.

You don't have to 'spend time', you just have to pop in and get your buffs. You knew you would be there for 4-5 minutes, good time to look at something in the distance to prevent eye strain, relieve your bladder, or grab a snack, for the next hour or two of gaming.

Forced 'down time' and 'travel time' are key elements of games, you don't want people to be constantly in the heavy action or they get bored quicker. The Arkam Batman games were great to me, they had little action in comparison to most 'action' games, the key is making the game nice to look at, same goes for Skyrim.

You just have to make sure every time you force someone to go somewhere, it is worth their while, either visually or mechanically.