Goblin Squad Member
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I'm not sure GW is actually going to want to give players a risk-free place to practice their tactics at defeating monsters. You have to recognize that "learning to defeat monsters" is a Reward in itself.
Also, I am highly skeptical of non-professionally created and vetted content being in-game. I see a lot of room for the modern equivalent of publishing houses: where before they would sell adventure modules as books, with this system they will be able to sell them in-game, and the content will be up to GW standards. Note, I am not saying you should have to be a "licensed developer" of PFO content, but I do think GW should vet anything that goes into the game, and effectively give it their stamp of approval saying "We believe this content is worth $7.99".
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Goblin Squad Member
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I'm not sure GW is actually going to want to give players a risk-free place to practice their tactics at defeating monsters. You have to recognize that "learning to defeat monsters" is a Reward in itself.
Also, I am highly skeptical of non-professionally created and vetted content being in-game. I see a lot of room for the modern equivalent of publishing houses: where before they would sell adventure modules as books, with this system they will be able to sell them in-game, and the content will be up to GW standards. Note, I am not saying you should have to be a "licensed developer" of PFO content, but I do think GW should vet anything that goes into the game, and effectively give it their stamp of approval saying "We believe this content is worth $7.99".
That for the most part I see, but I also can't quite wrap my head around infinitely repeatable instances can really fit in with the sandbox at the same time, the rewards from which would have to be significantly lowered to not throw it ahead of the rest of the world where the value of everything is valuble, throwing in lower rewards, also most likely involves lower penelties.
I'm trying to wrap my head around what rewards from these instances could be fair to not throw the economy out of alignment with things infinitely farmable and more or less completely safe from PVP.
Awesome blog.
I am firmly in favor of some instancing being in the game, despite the immersion/persistance problem.
It is the only sure way to prevent one or two highly motivated guilds from devouring all the PvE content.
For example:
1. Wandering monsters: These are creatures you may encounter as you explore the world. Typically, the further you are from civilization, the more dangerous the monstrous creatures you'll encounter. These creatures are spawned into the game randomly, and if left unmolested for a certain period of time, they'll automatically despawn.
And:
3. Ruins, lairs and caverns: ...You will find these areas using abilities; once located they'll spawn on the map and be findable by anyone who travels to the correct location. If they are cleared...they'll be removed from the game world automatically.
<Top Guild> decides they're going to corner the entire PvE landscape. They build a team of trackers who excel at speed and discovery skills that do nothing but seek out high level wandering monsters and dungeons, and then the rest of the guild makes haste to clear the content. If they are motivated enough, no one outside this guild would ever see such content. Competitor guilds would rise up, and maybe one or two can give them a run for their money, but that just makes it even more certain that no one else gets to do this content.
Should this be prevented?
This game appears to trend toward the hardcore, but even so, I don't think you want a population like EQ had that was split into hardcore raiders and the second class of everyone else. Maybe you're aiming for the casual gamers to be Crafters or Builders, but even so I feel that if someone wants to participate in PvE, their ability to do so should not be restricted by a tiny minority of players. So yes, this absolutely should be prevented.
How can this be prevented?
1) Instances are one obvious answer, to make some content immune to being monopolized. I think this is a matter of embracing the need for them, rather than trying to justify whether to include them, and then working on the immersion/persistence problem.
2) Don't have wandering monsters include dragons or other raid-worthy monsters. Or if you must have wandering dragons, make them so rare that the farming practices of <Top Guild> are not worthwhile, so their discovery is truly a stroke of luck. The kind of rare that if I personally set out to find one, I may not ever find one, despite them being found regularly by the general population.
3) Make dungeon content take days or even weeks to clear, rather than hours. Make the dungeon population so abundant that even <Top Guild> wouldn't object to help clearing it out. Or, make dungeons so numerous that they couldn't possibly be cleared by one or two guilds before several more dungeons pop up in the world.
The immersion/persistence problem.
1) Apply diminishing returns to instance loot. Ie: you get the full benefit the first run, and declining benefits thereafter. At the least, doing an instance should provide a moderate reward for the time and effort. If you spend an hour in an instance, and an hour farming comparable level materials, the reward should be comparable, and scaled to risk. Maybe this could be as simple as giving a special reward on the first run, and each subsequent run offers only average rewards.
2) Apply the persistant world's dungeon mechanics to instances. Dungeons have variable locations and variable denizens. Do the same with instances, except with fixed locations. In this case, the instance would really be just a dungeon that no one else can enter with you except your group. When it's cleared, instead of despawning forever, it merely repopulates with somewhat random creatures.
3) Make it difficult to run the same instance over and over. Dungeons have to be discovered; maybe instances should be similarly "keyed." Each time you want to run an instance, you need a new "key."
4) Instance "rifts." Holes in your instance sometimes link to another, creating the chance of encountering a helpful party or the danger of PvP. This could be a random occurence whenever multiple parties are at about the same progress through the instance. Allied parties could scale the difficulty of the instance upward, while parties at war would not affect scaling.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I'm not sure GW is actually going to want to give players a risk-free place to practice their tactics at defeating monsters. You have to recognize that "learning to defeat monsters" is a Reward in itself.
Also, I am highly skeptical of non-professionally created and vetted content being in-game. I see a lot of room for the modern equivalent of publishing houses: where before they would sell adventure modules as books, with this system they will be able to sell them in-game, and the content will be up to GW standards. Note, I am not saying you should have to be a "licensed developer" of PFO content, but I do think GW should vet anything that goes into the game, and effectively give it their stamp of approval saying "We believe this content is worth $7.99".
Just to nitpick: They said you would buy the modules with in-game currency, so it would be more accurate to say 800 GP! :P But yeah, I would like it if they could review it before unleashing it to the other players. But that would need some employees (at least one at the beginning) doing only that. But it would be great.
More seriously, this is awesome. This is very close to what I hoped it would be, and even then, the things that are different only make this better!
I can't wait to start my character, but for the first time in my life, I think only one won't be enough! I'm very interested by the crafting AND the building side. I'll try to find a "in character" reason, like playing two brothers or something like that.. :P
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Some questions though:
The lairs in the civilized areas sounds like the iconic sewers under some very big port city in a Forgotten Realm! ;) I really like this.
But I'd like to know something.. Could it be possible for a town to decide they want to "keep" one of their lair? Like, from time to time, someone goes down there and kill some monsters then go out, only to reset the timer?
Also, will monsters spawn back if someone kill half the monster in a lair/cavern/ruin and get out? If so, will they gradually refill or will they "reset" when quit?
You mentioned that sometimes, these locations can morph into habitable space... How will this be decided? Will it be by chance, or will we be able to "claim" it using a skill or some item?
When I talked to a friend about me wanting to do a craft-focused character, he asked me if that would mean I wouldn't be able to go out on adventures with him... And I couldn't quite answer... So there is the question: Will Craft-focused characters and Builders be able to go on adventures with friends from time to time? I want to do these type of characters, but I won't be able to get my friend to play if I can't go with him. :/
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I was speaking with a friend about the modules. We brainstormed a little bit about how they could change the world without changing it too much, and without breaking the "persistent" feeling... Maybe the modules could give a boost to some "hex" stats like giving a bonus to the goodwill from some other faction/hex, that could give advantage in the trades, or boosting the population or the level of civilization or a certain place. Each player could win each bonus only one time, and the bonus would be active only a set amount of time (a week to a month, depending on the difficulty of the module?). The hex would then need a steady flow of new players to maintain the bonuses, and it wouldn't break the immersion a lot I think.
They would give rewards more based on "roleplay" than mechanics. If this make sense.
Just some thoughts we had.
PS: Thank you a lot Ryan for the answers in the thread about the thread about death. It's really great to be able to discuss like this with you!
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Goblin Squad Member
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Just to nitpick: They said you would buy the modules with in-game currency, so it would be more accurate to say 800 GP! :P
But yeah, I would like it if they could review it before unleashing it. But that would need some employees (at least one at the beginning) doing only that. But it would be great.More seriously, this is awesome. This is very close to what I hoped it would be, and even then, the things that are different only make this better!
In game micro transactions usually reffers to real world money. You purchase X with real money, and then in game use X to purchase something, that is what microtransactions is pretty much always reffering to.
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Goblin Squad Member
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*SNIP*In game micro transactions usually reffers to real world money. You purchase X with real money, and then in game use X to purchase something, that is what microtransactions is pretty much always reffering to.
Oh, yeah, strangely, my eyes somehow slipped past the word "micro-transaction" between "in-game" and "currency" ! xD
So yeah, my joke is quite... irrelevant. Sorry about that. :/Oh, and sorry for the Edit, but what do you think of my idea about the rewards? Do you think it could be a good solution? Didn't talk about it to anyone beside my friend, so I don't know if it sounds good or not. It may be hard to judge our own ideas sometimes. Something that sounds awesome to us may be very weird for others...
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Goblin Squad Member
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I could be wrong, but I would be willing to bet cash money that some of y'all are laboring under a misconception. I don't believe the "dungeons" are going to be elaborate content that is all hand-crafted by the developers. I think it's going to be much more akin to the Rifts that spawn in Rift, and to the Missions you used to get in SWG. I just don't see it being cost-effective to had-craft each and every dungeon.
What I expect to happen is that they'll have entryways built into the landscape all over the map. When a dungeon spawns in, it will get connected to one of those entryways, which will then allow players to pass through it. The mobs that populate this particular spawning of that dungeon will probably be fairly dynamic. From an RP sense, it's just that something else has taken over that area since the other stuff was cleared out. They might even have the same static floor plan for each dungeon instance connected to a particular entryway, so that you don't really have the immersion-breaking sense of walking into a cavern you've been in before and seeing all the caves inside going in different directions than they did the last time.
I really don't expect there'll be a lot of running the same dungeon over and over again. I imagine there will be enough entryways in each hex that the randomness of which dungeon you activate will not frequently put you going through the same entryway. If each map hex is supposed to be approximately 1,000 yards* diameter, then I think there's easily room for 64 or even 256 entryways tucked away. That's a *lot* of places to go dungeoning :)
I also don't think there's going to be any problem at all with people spawning dungeons as quickly as they can and clearing them out. In fact, I think that's going to be the preferred/expected PvE behavior. Well, that and guarding Harvesters.
Most MMOs have areas with mobs that drop coin and loot, where the mobs respawn every few minutes, and players either grind on those mobs non-stop, or they clear them out as they pass through doing quests. This will be a lot like that, except it won't be mobs respawning in the exact same spot over and over. Instead, we'll spawn a random dungeon somewhere in the hex, run out there and clear it, and then run back to town to dump our loot and restock.
* A quick note on why I said 1,000 yards instead of 1 kilometer: I'll be starting another thread for this, but I think it's going to be a real shame if they use kilometers as the standard unit of distance in PFO. Most fantasy-genre stuff goes out of its way to resurrect archaic words, usually from British or at least northwestern European history. Personally, I hate the metric system with a passion, and that may unduly bias me in this, but I actually don't mind seeing those units used in sci-fi games. However, I think I'm being objective when I say that a system that was entirely designed to be rational and scientific really will only have an immersion-breaking effect when used in a fantasy setting.
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I think I actually agree with using standard measurements if not simply fantasy measurements.
Standard is relatable and understood by americans and a few others, only a few would have to learn it.
Fantasy seperates our ideas of distance from the game allowing it to seem larger if only when talking about it, but everyone would have to learn it bottom up.
Either way works for me, just not metric.(and don't make fantasy measures like metric either)
I for one am using the word "dungeon" exclusively as defined in the blog (ie: ruins, lairs, caverns in the persistent world).
I also don't think there's going to be any problem at all with people spawning dungeons as quickly as they can and clearing them out. In fact, I think that's going to be the preferred/expected PvE behavior. Well, that and guarding Harvesters.
If dungeons are this numerous, my concerns will be abated.
And I agree about units of measure.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Excellent, my "wandering Cleric of Desna who focuses on shipping/resources/crafting/exploration" concept is becoming more and more viable.
I wouldn't normally agree that the metric system is bad for anything, but when you guys put suspension of disbelief on the table, I have to agree with you, metric wouldn't be a good idea.
I'm eager to hear more about the role of exploration. Others have made the very reasonable conjecture that exploration will be used to find dungeons, but I hope those skills can be used to find other PvE content, such as hidden encampments and/or resource nodes. Though, a system where explorers are the only ones who can "unlock" PvE content seems too restrictive. Exploration could become too valuable or the skills too accessible to matter. Each of these play systems in balance will be the key, of course.
Magic items and shipping/trading will be interesting. Hauling a few tons of mithril ore will be a very different experience depending on how many magically expanded cargo containers you have. I would love the idea of high-value deliveries being done, solo or in a team, by characters with the proper magic items trained thoroughly in stealth.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I've got a few ideas and suggestions I would like to throw into the pot:
Dungeon/Raid type handling:
Once you defeat a hostile npc faction that has overrun a hex, players should always have a few options to choose from, I feel they should be:
-Strip the place of resources, effectively removing all constructed materials
-Rebuild and create a new settlement
-Leave sitting there for someone else to mess with or npc faction to take control of.
Player Generated Content:
I'm going to assume this idea is being handled as a COX/NWN hybrid idea, where players can create maps. The people that are going to shine the most here are the story tellers(and the super-grind maps*), so why not make certain instanced hexes with dimensional portals or something. When you want to go run a instance mission, you grab a team, everyone chipps in some points to buy the map and you go to one of the portals.
Now as for intertwining this with the rest of the world, the reward for compleating such mission needs to be something that betters what ever location you ran it from, of the faction that you rand it from. Player generated content should require a few paramaters that must be filled each time:
-Which factions can run the mission?
-Which alignments cant run the mission?
-What is the scope of the reward.
----now this one is where the map determines what is required of the creator, if you are going to make a map with a substantial reward, there has to be a required level of difficulty and facilities in place that prevent ideal situations. So, lets say the mission is to get a big new shiny uber-cannon for your faction that can blow up another hex without warning, the mission better be damn near impossible with any combination of players. On the other hand if the reward is added coin to a settlements development budget, the mission won't be quite as difficult and require less people to complete.
It wouldn't be a bad idea to develop a tool like in Neverwinter Nights, give players the canvas of a single hex, and let them go to work. This is also a great opportunity to do something innovative in your development. If you use this tool to make the game you spend a longer time developing the tool, but when it's polished up you can build the world incredibly fast and can also develop some algorithms to automatically generate new hexes. One thing that plagues games with PvE content is that the players that like to focus on PvE get bored fast because they aren't getting new content fast enough.
Really study COH's Architect system and the NWN2 design program, a hybrid of the two could be a huge thing for this game there are a lot of good things in both systems. And it would be nice if you gave some coding freedom and tied in an option for c/c++/c#, if players decided to go hardcore story designing and wanted to change some super-advanced settings.
One final thing I would like to add in, this is a bit off topic, is the start of the game. Players need to be able to figure out exactly what is going on when they enter the world, a good 20 minute fully voiced tutorial where they try out a majority of the systems in the game would be nice. Teach them how to gather resources, craft, fight, level up, find stuff to do without making them sit there and read pop-ups. And if at all possible, be very careful with the learning curve, if anything only around 10% of the content should be a steep learning curve, and that should be most of the super high level stuff. EVE would be seeing a much higher population inflow if it's most known feature isn't how steep the learning curve is. The idea is to find a good balance where your hand is held when you want it, and you don't even know it's there when you don't want it to be. Don't just shoot for a small corner of the market like Masthead did, you can start there, but your final goal should be poaching players from games like TOR and WOW by showing them a much better experience, that is a little more difficult, but teaches you everything you need to know without you noticing.
*Take a lesson from CoH when they launched the architect: People are going to find a way to break your system to great reward, until the system is rock solid there needs to be compensation for reporting such things, a simple 'thank you' is not enough to draw people into reporting things. Creating max level characters in 4 hours was fun, but kills the game experience.
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Goblin Squad Member
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-What is the scope of the reward.
----now this one is where the map determines what is required of the creator, if you are going to make a map with a substantial reward, there has to be a required level of difficulty and facilities in place that prevent ideal situations. So, lets say the mission is to get a big new shiny uber-cannon for your faction that can blow up another hex without warning, the mission better be damn near impossible with any combination of players. On the other hand if the reward is added coin to a settlements development budget, the mission won't be quite as difficult and require less people to complete.
IMO the scope of the reward is something that cannot be judged by a machine, this absolutely can only be done via human judging. There is absolutely no algorithm that can fairly judge difficulty in a scenerio where a player can tweak the map to make whatever enemies he puts in the least effective possible. A uniquely challenging map would likely be one that mixes enemies with different weaknesses and stregnths to make interesting challenges. While someone wanting to abuse the system, would say take the strongest mellee only creature, put as many of them as the game allows, inside a giant pit roughly the same size as the area range of an acid fog. Similar could also be accomplished by specifically putting in enemies that are weak to the same ability/save making it so their one trick pony build will completely dominate.
So far the closest to a balance option that I heard for this was give a decent reward once, and less rewards after. But even that can be abused if they are tradable etc... (get 5 people to write super easy high reward ones, rotate).
So yeah IMO there are only 2 fair ways to do rewards for player made modules. A GM approval method, or elimination of rewards and make it just for fun.
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I say it should be gm approval for rewards but not for creation. If I want I go in and make a dungeon then populate with monsters(and their equipment) and share. If it becomes popular and the balance is good a gm might then allow players to keep some or all of the loot (or maybe some other fitting reward).
Also ideas for immersion,
Aria's Illussionary Emporium, a place for adventurers to explore magic illusions.
Or just other dimensions that can be connected to via gates or equivelent spells (including scrolls).
Of course now I have to make an aria character. (I'm thinking blue)
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Goblin Squad Member
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IMO the scope of the reward is something that cannot be judged by a machine, this absolutely can only be done via human judging. There is absolutely no algorithm that can fairly judge difficulty in a scenerio where a player can tweak the map to make whatever enemies he puts in the least effective possible. A uniquely challenging map would likely be one that mixes enemies with different weaknesses and stregnths to make interesting challenges. While someone wanting to abuse the system, would say take the strongest mellee only creature, put as many of them as the game allows, inside a giant pit roughly the same size as the area range of an acid fog. Similar could also be accomplished by specifically putting in enemies that are weak to the same ability/save making it so their one trick pony build will completely dominate.So far the closest to a balance option that I heard for this was give a decent reward once, and less rewards after. But even that can be abused if they are tradable etc... (get 5 people to write super easy high reward ones, rotate).
So yeah IMO there are only 2 fair ways to do rewards for player made modules. A GM approval method, or elimination of rewards and make it just for fun.
You can judge reward level pretty easily with a machine, COH does it pretty well. When you are creating NPC's they must have a certain level of ability, such as 8/10 abilities and 1 of the abilities must be a ranged attack, otherwise that enemy gives no reward past a certain level. Asking for GM approval is not good for us, because it is not good for GW, they can't inspect every map that is submitted to them, it's just not cost responsible, and elimination of rewards probably won't apply because as said in the blog, repeating the same story kills immersion. The whole idea of this game, as I see it, is to make a pseudo 2nd Life in the Pathfinder world. And the only way to make the game fair, enjoyable and un-broken, is to have hard coded requirements for certain aspects of the game. GW can go an make a pure life simulator MMO, but that won't attract a huge crowd, and thus won't attract investors if you proposal is for a very small chunk of the MMO market.
A system like i suggest can prevent optimizing by forcing diversity in the map building. Things like "all melee" or "weak against me" wouldn't be exclusively allowed, and when you think about it, no group would only cater to one strength and/or all share the same weakness. You can create a algorithm to designate difficulty and fairness, but the more options you allow the harder it is to make the program. If the story builder is simply placing items/npcs, writing conversations, and creating triggered events - the system is easy to monitor. If you give players access to developer level control, it will be very difficult to monitor.
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On another note, If player generated stories are put in game, and put up on a cash shop, we should be able to create previews for our stories that everyone can access for free. This makes the system more profitable for us by allowing players to interact with the product before they purchase it. This way we can write a good hook to get people to buy our maps, instead of having to describe why players should play it in a short block of text.
And if a cash shop is added, please don't make your own currency. You are a US based company and I'm guessing the game will only be available for retail in the US at launch. Use $$$$$$$$$$$ and don't force us to load the account with pre-set amounts. I have no respect for a company that forces people to spend more than they want to, and have positive balances that nothing can buy. If you absolutely must make your own type of currency, make sure that every thing you can purchase is dividable by the lowest priced thing, this way players are never left with a balance on their account and nothing available to buy.
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Goblin Squad Member
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You can judge reward level pretty easily with a machine, COH does it pretty well. When you are creating NPC's they must have a certain level of ability, such as 8/10 abilities and 1 of the abilities must be a ranged attack, otherwise that enemy gives no reward past a certain level. Asking for GM approval is not good for us, because it is not good for GW, they can't inspect every map that is submitted to them, it's just not cost responsible, and elimination of rewards probably won't apply because as said in the blog, repeating the same story kills immersion. The whole idea of this game, as I see it, is to make a pseudo 2nd Life in the Pathfinder world. And the only way to make the game fair, enjoyable and un-broken, is to have hard coded requirements for certain aspects of the game. GW...
Again the rewards part still cannot be done, OK assuming that you made the ranged and Melee the same, the system can still be broken, Throw a giant pit in the middle. fill it with enemies, assuming that fireball cannot just be used as a granade, you can still rush over, throw an acid fog in the center and dash out.
Or I could say fill the place entirely with enemies that are all weak to fire with low reflex saves and create something that is heaven for a wizard that likes to use fireball, or all creatures that are super easy to trip for a fighter etc...
What is good design for challenge is to permit things to be mixed up and allow varieties of enemies with different strengths and weaknesses, but any system that allows the flexibility to do so, also allows people the flexibility to do the exact opposite and create the ultimate "Ideal encounter" for their character or group, that would be rated hard for anyone who wasn't the perfect specialty, but for themselves is a cakewalk. Anyone who has designed a dungeon in any game knows that placement, types combinations etc... can make simple monsters easy, and easy monsters insanely difficult. Take a level 5 party, put them up against 10 cr1/2 kobalds, and in the next room throw them up against a gelatinous cube, super easy.
Now put the same party in a 30' hallway, open a door and a gelatinous cube is right there, slipping into the hallway, at that moment, 10 cr/2 kobalds rush in from behind. The difference in difficulty between those 2 encounters is huge.
My best encounters and most fun adventures, came from taking normally weak enemies, and putting them in positions that made things the party should walk all over deadly, and IMO that is great dungeon design. Putting in rewards based on level and power of enemies, via any automated system, will make the most popular modules the exact opposite of that.
The best system I can think of is, the modules are entirely for fun, you can bring friends in, use them to try things out etc... If the module becomes popular the GM's approve it, and make it available via micro-transactions or earn-able in game somehow. (say every month they took the top 20, put the top 10 in the store, and 10 runner ups in game). The free version remains available with no reward, the micro-transaction and in game earn-able ones have rewards.
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Goblin Squad Member
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First of all skills lvl by time not kills. So why is a perfect encounter bad? The only thing you gain from monsters is loot (or maybe a quest) so just say that the loot is scaled. And nothing counts towards quest or badge completion and be done with it.
Right loot is the primary rewards for most anything to our knowledge and that is primarally what is being discussed. But what is loot scaled in relation to? Is it just a set amount of loot regardless of difficulty? Is it set based on what monsters are involved, which is a system more or less guaranteed to be gamed? or do we have the GM's decide the amount of loot to have a system more or less immune to being tricked?
Or do we say the heck with it these modules are meant to be entertaining, lets leave actual rewards out of it altogether.
IMO GM's are the only fair way to permit loot to have any purpose, but because of the difficulty of that I still think players should be able to make them, test them, share them on a purely for fun role, and the GM's look at the most popular, make them official and add appropriate loot.
Chief Technical Officer
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| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Also, I am highly skeptical of non-professionally created and vetted content being in-game. I see a lot of room for the modern equivalent of publishing houses: where before they would sell adventure modules as books, with this system they will be able to sell them in-game, and the content will be up to GW standards. Note, I am not saying you should have to be a "licensed developer" of PFO content, but I do think GW should vet anything that goes into the game, and effectively give it their stamp of approval saying "We believe this content is worth $7.99".
I can't imagine that being any more feasible than having Paizo vet 3rd-party content written for the Pathfinder RPG. We don't have the resources to do that—and even if we did, I wouldn't want Paizo to provide qualitative assessments of thrid-party products that we ourselves sell—that would be a bit like fixing the market. But we *do* give our community the ability to review such products, and I think that will probably be the appropriate solution for Goblinworks as well.
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Chief Technical Officer
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| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
And if a cash shop is added, please don't make your own currency. You are a US based company and I'm guessing the game will only be available for retail in the US at launch. Use $$$$$$$$$$$ and don't force us to load the account with pre-set amounts. I have no respect for a company that forces people to spend more than they want to, and have positive balances that nothing can buy. If you absolutely must make your own type of currency, make sure that every thing you can purchase is dividable by the lowest priced thing, this way players are never left with a balance on their account and nothing available to buy.
I can give you a very good reason why companies do that for microtransactions: credit card processing fees. Basically, every time your card is charged for a sale, the bank that runs the charge takes a fee. That fee is structured as a flat charge for doing the transaction plus a percentage of the dollar amount, which means that the fee for a small transaction is a higher percentage of a small total, and a lower percentage of a large total.
Let's take Paizo selling a third-party PDF for a buck. Because we pay 75% of the item's price to the publisher, that means we keep 25 cents for that PDF sale. If that PDF is the only item in the order, the credit card processing fee is going to eat up most of that 25 cents, leaving us near zero profit. (Fortunately for us, people who buy PDFs tend to buy several at once, so the processing fee usually doesn't eat up *all* the profit.) This fee structure therefore has a real effect on the minimum price of items we offer in the store: it means we don't let third parties sell PDFs on paizo.com for less than a buck.
To sum that up in a sentence: credit card processing fees mean businesses have to set a minimum item cost to avoid losing money on some transactions.
Companies that do a lot of microtransactions use their own currency so that they can price the smallest package of that currency at a price that doesn't get eaten up by processing fees. In turn, they're able to set the minimum item price significantly lower than they otherwise could.
That is to say, if we only accepted PaizoBucks for PDFs, and you had to buy PaizoBucks in increments of $5, then we could offer PDFs that cost less than a dollar without risk of losing money on that sale.
To sum *all* of that up in a sentence: using a house currency allows you to offer lower-cost items than you can using dollars.
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Chief Technical Officer
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I can't imagine that being any more feasible than having Paizo vet 3rd-party content written for the Pathfinder RPG.Are you saying that you don't have some kind of review process before you sell content from 3rd parties for the RPG? That surprises me.
We have a process to approve *publishers* that want to sell items in our store, but once they've been approved, we only look at individual products if customers report issues with that product. Some weeks, we get *dozens* of new products submitted to the store; vetting them all simply isn't feasible.
We have a process to approve *publishers* that want to sell items in our store, but once they've been approved, we only look at individual products if customers report issues with that product. Some weeks, we get *dozens* of new products submitted to the store; vetting them all simply isn't feasible.I can't imagine that being any more feasible than having Paizo vet 3rd-party content written for the Pathfinder RPG.Are you saying that you don't have some kind of review process before you sell content from 3rd parties for the RPG? That surprises me.
What Vic said. A lot, a lot, a lot of word count goes through the Paizo store from third-party publishers on a weekly, sometimes even daily basis.
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Goblin Squad Member
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We have a process to approve *publishers* that want to sell items in our store...
Would you attempt the same kind of approval of in-game content?
I guess I'm a little gunshy about having Pink Unicorn Guild Halls (watchtheguild.com) dotting the landscape. As I've said elsewhere, I am very, very optimistic about the end result of y'all opening up PFO for 3rd party content creation, and I'm not trying to throw a wet blanket on that at all.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Actually, I don't see vetting user-created content for the game at all the same as Paizo vetting 3rd party published goods.
Paizo does, in fact, vet all freelancer created material that's created for their campaign setting. That's a brand and product that Paizo is (correctly) trying to protect. You can't just publish something, call it Golarion canon, and sell it on the website, for a number of reasons - not the least of which is Jacobs will rage out and eat a lawyer.
Vetting player-created modules within the game is, effectively, the same thing. Goblinworks would be protecting the user experience - a task that should be done actively, not passively. (Prime example: the Apple Apps Store. Those apps are tested to death to make sure they don't interfere with the user experience that Apple wants you to have.) I can't imagine that everyone who joins PFO will be wanting to create their own module anyway; only a small percentage of those joining will be module creators, so the "testing" of modules - to at the very least avoid the whole "open a chest and get 1,000,000 XP" problem that plagued NWN's own module-creation - should be a (relatively) uncomplicated task. (Especially if you only allow a limited toolbox to begin with.)
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Goblin Squad Member
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Sorry for being unclear. As you say the mission location does not even spawn until you "warp" to it. I always assumed it is simply an instance, not really a persistent location. If it was a persistent location, then a wandering ship could hypothetically travel to it without warping. EVE avoids this by making distances to vast that this is probabilistically impossible. PFO does not have that benefit. Yet, the way they described it in the blog made it sound as if they were going to...to me that still does not add up. If my "mission" is to go dstroy a goblin nest...and I get speed travel to a locale with a goblin nest...what if some random player is already at that location because they are out exploring? Will they have goblins spawn on them? The only solution to avoid this seems to make the location an instance, but then there are concerns with the persistence. I am not saying their model will not work or is not awesome, only that I did not understand. Hope that clears up my intent.If you succeed in developing it as depicted it will be grandiose!
Awesome. My only reservation, and I am sure it is probably unfounded, is that it does seem a bit too EVE'ish with respect to active areas. You mention the ability to find new areas, or "dungeons" of various sorts, and that these will stay active for anyone who can find them (for a time)...does this mean you must fast travel to them, or that they actually exist as a location in the world and anyone who is roaming the world can also run across them? I certainly hope for the latter, but your description sounds like the former (like EVE).I fail to get what you are saying, at least in your reference to EVE.
A mission given by a NPC will spawn a location that can be found only when there is a player ship in it (or a drone, even an abandoned one).
A exploration site can be found by anyone at any time, independently from a prior discovery from another player.
Obviously you need the appropriate gear to find those ships and locations.
So in EVE the "dungeons" are active for everyone that has the gear to find them while adventuring sites spawned expressly for you by NPC can be found when there is a player in them. It seem much more near your latter version than the former.
Actually in the past of EVE it was possible, some mission did spawned near gates and it was possible for players without a bookmark to kill the NPC even before the player getting the mission did arrive.
Today you have the escalations from exploration sites that work that way.You find site A, you clear it and get a bookmark to site B in another system. Site B is spawned immediately and last 24 hours, People that don't have the appropriate bookmark will be capable to find it using exploration probes.
Then there are the militia missions, a special kind of missions, half PvE and half PvP. When the guy "owning" the mission warp to it the location appear in the overview of all people in the system, so everyone can warp there (disclaimer, I have stopped doing militia stuff years ago, so I am fuzzy on the current details of the missions).
Move to PFO.
If I get the a job from a NPC: "Clear the goblin lair" there two several possible outcomes:
- we (me and my friends) clear the goblin lair
- we fail at it and default the mission (because I had a time limit, I see I am over my head for several levels or whatever)
Succeeding or failing will have its set of consequences:
- we get or don't get my reward
- we get a better or worse reputation with the guy giving the job to me
Now what will happen if other people will be capable to find the goblin lair before I even get there?
- they fail to clear it before we get there - No problem (maybe we will fight when my group get there, but that is another matter)
- they clear it before we get there, now we have several subsets of options:
a) the lair despawn:
a1) we are notified that the lair has despawned
a2) we aren't notified and trek to the lair to find nothing
b) the lair don't despawn
b1) we get to the lair and find a empty lair
b2) we get to the lair and some (or all) of the goblins have been respawned
Problems:
a1 break immersion
a2 is simply bad
b1 is slightly better than a2 but very annoying
b2 can be gamed to get a infinitely respawning group of goblins
The there are the consequences:
- the goblin group was destroyed by some other guy, now what will happen?
a) We report to the guy giving me the mission: "The goblins have been destroyed".
a1) He don't care who did it, he give the reward and reputation boost to my group
a2) He care
a2a) He don't pay and don't give the reputation boost but my group isn't penalized
a2b) He don't pay and actually reduce our reputation as if we had failed
a2c) He don't pay us but pay the guys that have actually killed the goblins and give them a reputation boost (with or without a reputation loss for us).
b) The mission is simply cancelled from our log, so we have no one to which we can report, again with or without reputation losses.
As you can see if the job is a mission given to a specific group and it can be done/removed by other guys before you even get a try at it it can generate a lot of problems.
A possible solution is not to give out personal missions but to post public announcement:
"There are goblin near Winterglade harassing the peasants. A reward of 500 gp will be issued to the first person bringing 10 goblin heads to Harrowtown sheriff."
Read the announcement and you will get a pointer to Winterglade, bring the head and you will get the reward.
Someone get them before your group? Too bad. It was a public announcement. But you will not suffer any negative effect.
(hopefully the announcement will show the time at which the announcement was posted, so that you will have an idea if there will be already 100 guys running toward Winterglade or you are the first one)
Naturally this solution can be problematic is you have a lot of players on the server. Keeping the number of jobs in line with the number of groups that can potentially do them will be difficult to manage.
Keeping all the above and fun in mind I am more favourable to a EVE like solution: the location will spawn for all to find when the group that has has received the mission is near enough, so that it will not be completed by someone finding the location at random.
A interesting idea would be to have both missions that are given out by NPC to specific groups/persons and public announcements for all to see.
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Goblin Squad Member
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The immersion/persistence problem.
1) Apply diminishing returns to instance loot. Ie: you get the full benefit the first run, and declining benefits thereafter. At the least, doing an instance should provide a moderate reward for the time and effort. If you spend an hour in an instance, and an hour farming comparable level materials, the reward should be comparable, and scaled to risk. Maybe this could be as simple as giving a special reward on the first run, and each subsequent run offers only average rewards.
2) Apply the persistant world's dungeon mechanics to instances. Dungeons have variable locations and variable denizens. Do the same with instances, except with fixed locations. In this case, the instance would really be just a dungeon that no one else can enter with you except your group. When it's cleared, instead of despawning forever, it merely repopulates with somewhat random creatures.
3) Make it difficult to run the same instance over and over. Dungeons have to be discovered; maybe instances should be similarly "keyed." Each time you want to run an instance, you need a new "key."
4) Instance "rifts." Holes in your instance sometimes link to another, creating the chance of encountering a helpful party or the danger of PvP. This could be a random occurence whenever multiple parties are at about the same progress through the instance. Allied parties could scale the difficulty of the instance upward, while parties at war would not affect scaling.
This seem the EVE DED complexes. They were fixed location dungeons and (with the exception of a few low level ones) they have been moved to exploration content with no fixed location.
They were semi-instanced, as you had to gather a key from a enemy in the first room to progress into the dungeon. The key and enemies did respawn periodically.When the number of players did become high enough they did become a failure, as you had people camping perpetually the first room to rush to the key and (even worse), camping the last room where the good loot was located and grabbing it as soon as the dungeon was refilled, avoiding all the previous rooms.
Some "player" (generally people from some gold farm) was capable to camp it for 23 hours every day (EVE server have a daily maintenance shutdown), getting in as soon as the server was up and camping the last room for the rest of the day.
Decidedly frustrating for all the other players.
I think that coping that in PFO will generate the same problems.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I wouldn't normally agree that the metric system is bad for anything, but when you guys put suspension of disbelief on the table, I have to
If you go out of your way to request a non metric unit of measure justifying it with RP reasons, I must pretend that we use the Chelaxina yard that is different from the Taldan pertica that is different from the Halfing foot that .....
The metric system is simple, has easy multipliers and is consistent.yes, it can be taken for granted that the Inner Sea hasn't a consistent measurement system, but probably it is more unified that what we had in the middle ages, simply because trade is much more widespread and teleportation make trading through long distances relatively easy.
Every location will have its local system of measurement but most merchants will have a Absaloninan meter and scale to give fair measures to outsiders.
Now what will happen if other people will be capable to find the goblin lair before I even get there?
My understanding is the lair will not spawn unless you are physically there exploring the area.
When the number of players did become high enough they did become a failure, as you had people camping perpetually the first room to rush to the key and (even worse), camping the last room where the good loot was located and grabbing it as soon as the dungeon was refilled, avoiding all the previous rooms.
I haven't played EVE, so my knowledge of the game is limited to what I've read in this forum. What you describe would be problematic. But Ryan has suggested in other threads that EVE really isn't concerned about certain aspects of their game (I believe he was referring to PvP griefing), which leads me to believe Goblinworks IS concerned, and wouldn't let this sort of thing happen.
The obvious fixes would be to place a key drop some distance away from the instance, or maybe even a random hex drop, or a quest reward some distance away. It doesn't need to be an actual "key" either--maybe doing certain quests would simply allow you access to the instance. Anything that wouldn't choke up the entrance. Then, either don't allow respawns while people are in the instance, or have respawns be random monsters. And scale the reward to the risk. If you do nothing all day but sit in the last room of the instance waiting for respawn, you should wait a long time for an average reward.
Vic Wertz already said that Pathfinder officially uses Feet and Miles, and that the developers will have to give them a very compelling reason to deviate from that.
While I agree that would break immersion, on reflection I don't think it will come up often. I can't think of a single time in WoW or EQ, for instance, when any distance was quantified. Maybe it will be a non issue.
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Well.....
I stand corrected.
This blog has me all sorts of interested in this game again. Some great features being discussed here. I particularly like the possibility of player generated content in terms of what you discussed here.
I also like the concept of cleared duneons/encampments possibly opening up for player use. If you can pull this off, it has potential for great game immersion and playability.
Cheers
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Another idea is if quest for hunting goblins is given then a random dungeon keeps spawning until that group clears one. The infinite goblins is less of an issue because pc don't get exp for kills so why farm like this? Loot can easily be tied to players, if player A has looted 50k gold of stuff then is less likely to find anything on a dead body but if player B comes up behind A and looks at same body then can find more loot (assuming B hasn't got as much loot that day).
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Goblin Squad Member
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Vic Wertz already said that Pathfinder officially uses Feet and Miles, and that the developers will have to give them a very compelling reason to deviate from that.
Unless I have misread what you guys were writhing there was a "movement" that you started to use "archaic" measurement systems from "British or at least northwestern European history".
You can like them because they are in your historical background, but the simple idea of having to learn the difference between a yard and a cloth yard, what a fathom or a chain is and all your different gallons (no, really, you have 3 different measurements with the same name, to cite Wikipedia The gallon is a measure of volume. Historically it has had many different definitions, but there are three definitions in current use: the imperial gallon (≈ 4.546 l) which is used in the United Kingdom and semi-officially within Canada, the United States liquid gallon (≈ 3.79 l) and the lesser used United States dry gallon (≈ 4.40 l)) will reduce my enjoyment of the game a lot.Foot, yards and miles are relatively easy to manage, but if someone was sufficiently insane to resurrect the chain (A chain is a unit of length. It measures 66 feet, or 22 yards, or 100 links[1], or 4 rods (20.1168 m). There are 10 chains in a furlong, and 80 chains in one statute mile. An acre is the area of 10 square chains (that is, an area of one chain by one furlong). The chain has been used for several centuries in Britain and in some other countries influenced by British practice) as a meaningful measure in game it would be a big minus for me.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@ Scholar-at-Arms"
Mostly I was explaining the basis to get to:
Keeping all the above and fun in mind I am more favourable to a EVE like solution: the location will spawn for all to find when the group that has received the mission is near enough, so that it will not be completed by someone finding the location at random.
My idea is that the location will span when you are within 1-2 minutes of travel time from it and from that moment until it is completed it could be found by anyone in the area.
"a2 is simply bad" mean exactly what you think. A annoying loss of time. The public quests have the same problem, but at least you will know from the starter that they are a race between different groups to get there first.
From what I read B2 will be available for some of the locations found while exploring. I (an it is a big if) there will be some NPC giving out quest the probable number of quest given out will be so high that having the empty or slowly refilling dungeons dotting the landscape will become annoying after a time.
Think about "I cast commune with nature [or another appropriate spell or character power] to find the nearby interesting features."
"There are 27 laird north of you, 45 ruined buildings, 12 hilltops forts 13 abandoned mines and 1 group of wandering goblins."
Your map get 85 pointers to all the above.
It is like Skyrim with all the quest active. A lot of noise, little useful informations.
In this kind of stuff EVE give a few useful lessons. now CCP has taken step to disperse people a bit more, but till not so long ago you had a few systems with several hundred guys all running missions at the same time. Mission runners were so abundant that there were several corporation built around the idea of entering other people missions and steal the loot (and 99,999% of loot in the missions is common items not worth much). it was even suggested in forum as a way for new characters to earn money easily, with descriptions of dedicated builds.
My understanding is the lair will not spawn unless you are physically there exploring the area.
From what I get it is as jet undecided. I think it is undecided even if we will have NPC giving out common quests (module like quests will be very different, I think).
I haven't played EVE, so my knowledge of the game is limited to what I've read in this forum. What you describe would be problematic. But Ryan has suggested in other threads that EVE really isn't concerned about certain aspects of their game (I believe he was referring to PvP griefing), which leads me to believe Goblinworks IS concerned, and wouldn't let this sort of thing happen.The obvious fixes would be to place a key drop some distance away from the instance, or maybe even a random hex drop, or a quest reward some distance away. It doesn't need to be an actual "key" either--maybe doing certain quests would simply allow you access to the instance. Anything that wouldn't choke up the entrance. Then, either don't allow respawns while people are in the instance, or have respawns be random monsters. And scale the reward to the risk. If you do nothing all day but sit in the last room of the instance waiting for respawn, you should wait a long time for an average reward.
Yes, CCP isn't overly concerned about some aspect of the game, or better, they like to keep things that will foster more PvP, even if they will be annoying for PvE players.
For a gold farmer waiting all day long for a average reward, especially if it can be done in a already trained character for which you don't have to spend more money, can be perfectly acceptable. They have no problem running multiple characters at the same time with some bot alerting them when the targets spawn.
Fixed, respawning dungeons would be a magnet for them. I am sure the Goblinworks people are aware of that and will take what countermeasures they feel appropriate, but a reminder of that is never wasted.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Out of all the blogs, this one has me the most excited about the design plan. I would like to offer some critical comments, but, honestly, it is right on the money. Now, just build it with those specs and we are good! =)
Both the interconnectedness and the random/persistence ideas have me excited.
This is sounding more and more like a fantasy MMO version of EVE.
Not that I disagree, I think that translating most of the EVE mechanics into a high fantasy setting on land will remove the biggest downside with EVE - that space is very boring and empty.
Goblinworks Executive Founder
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If a person is willing to pay a bounty on goblin heads, why would it not scale? Ten heads would be worth ten times as much as one, and a tenth as much as a hundred. Specific "find this MacGuffin and do this with it." quests are theme park content. Not to say that there shouldn't be things like quest items, just that they shouldn't be part of a metagame quest mechanic.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Daniel, I can actually see at least one very good reason why someone might want to receive 10 goblin heads, but not be willing to pay for 10,000.
To my mind, the biggest drawback of Theme Park content is not the "bring me X widgets", but rather that you get that quest on every single character who ever goes through that zone. If players are able to basically put "buy" orders for X widgets, it's a totally different thing to me, and much more acceptable. It won't really matter to me whether the guy wants 3 goblin heads so he can decorate his hunting room wall, or if he wants as many as I can bring him because he's refined a process of turning them into ugly potions.
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The fahrenheit system came about because Fahrenheit used the freezing point and boiling point of SALT saturated water.
The salt lowers the freezing point and raises the boiling point. Its basically a liquid alloy that he used instead of pure water.
Don't believe me try it home. Mix as much salt as the water takes then boil and freeze it.
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Goblin Squad Member
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quests are theme park contentDev made quests are theme park; player made quests are sandbox; in my opinion...just for clarification.
IMO either would have to be theme park. Well at least if by quests you are meaning the instances. Now quests themselves are neither. Unless it resets itself and has no impact on the world other then providing the person who completes it with loot etc... it is sandbox.
IE
"Help me my farm is overrun with wolves"
*kills wolves, collects money, turns around wolves have respawned and a new player is now talking to the same NPC for the same quest.
That is theme park.
"Help me my farm is being attacked by wolves"
*player kills wolves collects money, surviving wolves are driven from hex to new area.
That is a sandbox.
Who made or assigned the quest is irrelevant. Now the exception to that could be if a PC town has say a "sell me wolf skins for X gold" that is technically sandbox, due to the resources still having impact and the quest eventually finishing up when the quest giver no longer needs wolf skins.
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Goblin Squad Member
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By definition theme park is dev driven content, sandbox is player driven content.
To illustrate, there might be a faction in game that is run by NPCs (the faction is built into the core of the game). This faction could promote PvP by giving missions to kill members of an opposing faction. Like a ride at a themepark, this content is built into the game and helps shape the direction of the game by inflexible conflict (fun).
I run my own player faction and decide that today we are going to reward anyone who kills x members of our opposing faction. Our choice to do this may look identical on the surface, but imo is very different. It is on par with you group at the themepark deciding to forego the rides in order to build your own ride you and others can enjoy. But this ride comes and goes with you and creates conflict that my not normally be there.
Antways, I see a whole world of difference between the two. Any failure to explain it clearly is my own and I apologize. On the otherhand, maybe I am only making a semantic argument that is pointless...
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Goblin Squad Member
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By definition theme park is dev driven content, sandbox is player driven content.
To illustrate, there might be a faction in game that is run by NPCs (the faction is built into the core of the game). This faction could promote PvP by giving missions to kill members of an opposing faction. Like a ride at a themepark, this content is built into the game and helps shape the direction of the game by inflexible conflict (fun).
I run my own player faction and decide that today we are going to reward anyone who kills x members of our opposing faction. Our choice to do this may look identical on the surface, but imo is very different. It is on par with you group at the themepark deciding to forego the rides in order to build your own ride you and others can enjoy. But this ride comes and goes with you and creates conflict that my not normally be there.
Antways, I see a whole world of difference between the two. Any failure to explain it clearly is my own and I apologize. On the otherhand, maybe I am only making a semantic argument that is pointless...
I see your point, but disagree, IMO sandbox is about actually changing the world around you. IMO who or what or why you opted to change the environment, that is a sandbox element. Theme park IMO is something that when you are done with it, everything goes back to normal, beyond looking at your character, there is no way to determine if no-one has done it, or if 50 people did said quest.
That is why skyrim is noted as a sandbox, despite 100% of the content being developer made, though as Ryan points out, it is only a partial sandbox in the sense that many actions lack the total consequences you would expect.