Goblin Squad Member
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Pathfinder Online is a fantasy sandbox MMO by Goblinworks based on the Pathfinder tabletop game. It uses a unique process called "crowdforging" to determine what features are implemented in the game, in what order. This crowdforging process will ensure the developers never make decisions or waste a lot of time on features that are highly unpopular with their community.
Beyond the crowd-forging process Goblinworks has already promised a lot of features that are really interesting and in some cases unique to their game. For full details you should read the Goblinworks blog or browse through the forum posts made by some of the developers like Ryan Dancey, Lee Hammock, Vic Wertz, and Mark Kalmes.
Here is a brief list of some of the highlights of this game:
1. No Grinding- Pathfinder Online uses a skill training system like that of EVE Online. You train skills by choosing what skill you want to train and allowing the time required to elapse. You don't train any faster by farming mobs or spamming your abilities than you do exploring the world, role playing with your friends, or even being offline. You will need to complete certain achievements to complete a skill and open up new avenues of training, but time-based training means you always get full value from your purchased game time whether you're casual or 'hardcore', an adventurer or crafter, or one who enjoys a lot of roleplaying chat or one who spends much of their time in combat.
2. No Classes- Unlike other games that give you a narrow range of abilities as you train your class, in Pathfinder you gain levels in different archetypes based off what you have trained. PFO uses a Guild Wars style system with a limited number of ability slots you can fill with any of the abilities available to you. Archetypes have bonuses for using a build made up of abilities from that archetype but this is only to balance them with the possible synergies of multi-archetype characters.
3. Player Structures- Build your own homes, taverns, farms, and even cities! The Pathfinder Online world will be filled with places players can use to build and customize their own homes, businesses and communities.
4. Freedom of Allegiance- Unlike games that give you a few factions to pick from like Alliance vs. Horde, in Pathfinder Online you can join a vast array of organizations run by players, create your own organization, or even be a lone wolf! Fight for your friends, your ideals, power, profits, or personal freedom. The choice is yours. The alliances, the betrayals, crushing defeats and glorious victories are all real, meaningful, and player-driven.
5. More Than A Gankfest- Unlike other Open World PVP MMO's currently on the market, Pathfinder Online actively discourages meaningless PVP. A meaningful alignment system that actually offers mechanical advantages to lawful and good aligned organizations, and a functional bounty system that allows the player to choose which players and organizations can collect the bounties they set discourages random and meaningless killing. Beyond this, the admins are taking a hard stance against 'griefing', in which players specifically seek to ruin the experience of other players, often through using game mechanics in ways that weren't intended. Griefing in PFO can be a bannable offence.
6. Real Battles- Large scale combat won't be the total chaos most MMO players are used to. PFO will make use of a formation system that gives groups significant bonuses for fighting in formation and coordinating their ability usage.
7. Less Tedious Crafting- Crafting won't be done by sitting and watching your character create the same recipe over and over. First you build the structure you need for the kind of crafting you want to do, like a sawmill, bakery, or smithy. Then you fill out work orders that your NPC subordinates execute for you. Meanwhile, you can go do other things, or later in the game's development there may be activities you can do to help the process along. PFO will also launch with both traditional resource harvesting and camp-based harvesting.
8. More Meaningful PVE- NPCs aren't all just sitting there in groups which never move, never change in size, and respawn every few minutes. There will be random NPC infestations that escalate in severity if not dealt with. For instance, a goblin camp left undealt with may turn into a goblin tribe that begins attacking your harvesting camps. Leave dragons, vampires, or giants alone long enough and they may attack your town. This creates a need to work together to deal with these threats and generates demand for players who train abilities specialized for hunting NPC types like vampire hunters and dragon slayers.
9. All Players are Useful- This won't be like games where a new player has 49 health and a veteran has 49,000. The attacks from that new player won't automatically miss the veteran. A new player will be weaker, but still able to make a meaningful contribution to combat. As a sandbox where group sizes aren't limited, this means all players are useful, and don't have to segregate themselves by level.
10. Trade is Meaningful- There is no auction house, no system to mail all your items across the map, no bank full of items you can access anywhere. In Pathfinder Online players must manually transport items to their intended destination. Most shops are player-run, and there will be goods more abundant in or even exclusive to certain regions. Merchants, traders, and even auctioneers are all viable professions.
If you are interested in this game please check out the kickstarter which will be running until January 14th. Also check out our organization The Empyrean Order, a gaurdian/peacekeeper kingdom which is currently the largest organization in Pathfinder Online.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Good post Andius. I'd suggest revising #6:
"Large scale combat won't be the total chaos most MMO players are used to, because it is being designed from the ground up to support warfare. For example, PFO will make use of a formation system that gives groups significant bonuses for fighting in formation and coordinating their ability usage."
the escalations they talked of actually remind me a lot of planar invasions from rift, but much more long term and meaningful. that might get the rift crowd interested if you compared it to the planar invasions.
Also gear while important wont be a huge issue for new players vs veterans either. there will not be stat inflation like most theme park MMOs.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Definitely expand on #6, I also very curious how this feature would work.
One thing, remove references to other MMOs, as there are players that have never played these MMOs thus would not know these features at all or how they are implemented. Rather expand the explanation describing the intended feature.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Also maybe add in blurbs about the contract system and dungeon system--those seem different than most games out there.
Yes. The contract system is genuine GAME-CHANGER in comparison to NPC+"!" Kill-10-Rats.
The escalations they talked of actually remind me a lot of planar invasions from rift, but much more long term and meaningful. that might get the rift crowd interested if you compared it to the planar invasions.
Yes Escalations and NPC Faction Alliances possibly fit in PvE section along with dungeon spawning? Maybe not if those key words add too much density to the overview description, however.
Perhaps pricing is outside the scope of the game description?
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Keyword Check (for interest):
#1: "Low power-curve" ; "Skill-Training Time"
#2: "Horizontal Skill-Training Progression"
#4: "Politics"
#5: +"Reputation system"
#8: "NPC Alliances" ; "Dungeon Generation system"
#10: "Contracts" ; "Virtual Economy"
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Goblin Squad Member
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Great write up, thanks. You mention player-built structures, freedom of allegiance and the fact that players mostly run the economy by owning stores and such, however you did not specifically mention Settlements.
For me the settlement system is the most attractive feature of PFO: the fact that a group of aligned players can own land, then build a settlement and expand on that, which then becomes the focus of pretty much every gamesystem in the game (PvP, Trade, Alignment and War, PvE/gathering) is just awesome.
I never really liked being part of a Guild because they feel so restricted in their focus (Raids, xp-groups), both things I am not a fan off. However belonging to a settlement where everyone's input is needed in so many different ways, to make the settlement thrive (and keep it safe) sounds so much better.
I am really anxious to see this particular feature play out: I hope to see a complex structure of smaller and bigger settlements, made up of a varied assortment of player associations in every form, including players that do not belong to any company at all (but can belong to a settlement).
It sounds as if belonging to a settlement can really make you care about it, even make you proud, or protective. If it works out that way, that would be huge.
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Goblin Squad Member
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What is more the escalation system seems ideal for some other scenarios. You will recall I mentioned the potential problem of player-built structures that are abandoned. They did clutter the world badly in a few other MMOs, a problem answered in EQ2 with the single universal front door that led to each account's home.
My thought was that over time the building should fall into disrepair, then ruin, if the owner did not return in time.
In towns the property would revert to the settlement.
In rural sites, however, something altogether different might happen where the structure becomes a lair that would eventually populate with escelatory creatures.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Another feature, as compared to most other MMOs, would be a game that is less item centric or loot drop centric. The best gear in the game should be player crafted gear, made by the highest level of crafter available.
Raid loot drops should be in the form of tokens, that could then be exchanged for gear or in-game currency. All participants in group get same reward and raid dungeons should never have to be repeated, unless we want to.
Raid dungeons should have timers set on them to prevent farming. They should also have a cap on the number of times they can be done by the same character.
This would fit in with PFO not being about "the grind".
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Goblin Squad Member
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Another feature, as compared to most other MMOs, would be a game that is less item centric or loot drop centric. The best gear in the game should be player crafted gear, made by the highest level of crafter available.
Raid loot drops should be in the form of tokens, that could then be exchanged for gear or in-game currency. All participants in group get same reward and raid dungeons should never have to be repeated, unless we want to.
Raid dungeons should have timers set on them to prevent farming. They should also have a cap on the number of times they can be done by the same character.
This would fit in with PFO not being about "the grind".
As far as I know in GW's descriptions, the raw concept of a "raid" is completely non-issue for PFO.
1. Most major dungoens and resource spots, are not in the same place. IE there isn't likely to be "Onyxia's lair located near X at the Y area". There may be a red dragons lair, and it may take a large group to eliminate it. However, the red dragon's lair is not likely to poof to respawn, the raid timer isn't likely going to be necessary because not only can the group that just killed the red dragon not return there in an hour, the red dragon in that lair is dead, for everyone. A new red dragons lair may respawn somewhere else, most likely with a bias towards an empty undeveloped hex, it may take a while before anyone finds it again.
and I am almost entirely certain the bind on pickup mechanic will be a non-factor, the red dragon most likely won't have 1 sword of uber awesomeness dropping, but there may be 15 items needed to craft many good weapons, which a crafter could make into many different things.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Crossing my fingers on the crafting process. I was a huge fan of the SWG (Star Wars Galaxies) crafting and resource side of things.
For those who don't know, nearly everything was craftable by players in the game. Some crafted items required components that were crafted by players (some even crafted by players of different skills, IE a tailor could craft padding needed by an Armorsmith to make armor). Each component or finally crafted item needed various resources to make it work (different kinds of metals, wood, furs, and grains). Their was a variety of each kind of resource, each with its own stats that fluctuated from time to time. And while you crafted your item you could experiment on them to attempt to tweak certain stats. Therefore, two weaponsmiths could use the same exact resources but experiment on different stats to make two weapons of the same type with slightly different stats. Or, they could use different resources to make the same weapon with vastly different stats.
I would love to see resource harvesting. Example, mining mithril or adamantine. Depending on where it was mined from it would have different base stats that could increase a weapon's damage, or its swing speed, or hardness and hitpoints.
*Edit*
Also borrowing a bit from SWG, I'm hoping the settlement system will allow player built cities to elect officials to help improve the look of their cities as well as impact the area directly around player cities. The community aspect that SWG created seemed unparrelled.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I so missed SWG I heard about it and so wanted to do the crafting but alas it was not to be. I would be beside myself with joy if the crafting system was like this. I have crafted in many games but most of the time it just for fun as crafted item sell for way less the their component parts. iron sells bronze sells a iron dagger not so much. a bronze sword not really. So unless you can craft the high end item you are sol.
When you add in raids no one want your crafted goods cause the in game stuff is better.
If I could ask for anything it be that crafting an item the finished items sells for more then it material parts.
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Goblin Squad Member
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My issue with crafting in most games is that you get cookie cutter items. What I make is just as good as what you makes. No differences in stats. The sword I make will be exactly the same as a sword anyone else makes on any other server any where else. Now, part of the fun of playing this game we all love so much, is that we get to loot some really great items. Artifacts, rare and powerful magic items, intelligent items. Now these should not be player made and should be powerful, however, I think they should have effects that players are incapable of creating themselves.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Andius
Hey, looking at this I think you might want to address a couple things
First: You should mention the fast-travel system and how there will be no teleporting from location to location
Second: address the threading system and how it degrades
Third: Talk about some of the faults with PfO. It really helps (for me at least) when I know the bad about a game before I get into it. I don't mean things like the graphics, but like the in-game systems that might be problems and how they are changing/how you perceive they change.
If people ask you about expanding those points that is a good thing, because it shows clear interest. And you can refer them to the devs to answer their questions.