Battle Standards for your Company


Pathfinder Online

Goblin Squad Member

Does anyone like the idea of each Company being able to construct it's own Standard or Flag to carry into battles? There could be a variety of Standards ranging from a simple and easy to craft one that is just for looks to more useful and harder to make ones.

The harder to make ones could give increasingly better bonuses but cost more to construct. The down side would be that if you all die the Standard is captured. One Company could only have one active Standard at a time although they could own several.

Has this idea been talked about before? I thought it would add a lot to the gameplay to see groups in the distance and see a Standard flying over them. It would be cool in large battles too.

Custom designs might be way down the road as far as what GW can do but there are a lot of possibilities for some generic designs that could be painted on your standard after you buy it from an NPC or something like that.

[url=http://img42.imageshack.us/img42/9182/nightgobarmystandard1.jpg]

edit. I messed up the link

Goblin Squad Member

You have to provide text to be hyperlinked. :) And also end it with the [/url].

Goblin Squad Member

1 person marked this as a favorite.

I want to carry giant, foam middle fingers into battle!

Goblin Squad Member

Bluddwolf wrote:
I want to carry giant, foam middle fingers into battle!

We will know what to expect when we see you coming.


Awesome idea!

Goblin Squad Member

I really hope we have some kind of easy identifier. If we don't have flags maybe just an icon next to our name showing our company logo.

I think having a physical flag to carry and plant would go a long way to making the world of PFO more awesome, and that's always a good thing.

Grand Lodge

Already working on our design.

Goblin Squad Member

1 person marked this as a favorite.

Warhammer Online had these and they were pretty darn cool.

Goblin Squad Member

If GW likes the idea maybe they could monetize the use of custom flag designs by selling them in the store. We could submit our design and then pay to have them program it into the game with it being our own permanent company flag design that could be transferred to a new flag if we lose the first one.

Grand Lodge

I could see a 25 dollar package available to a Settlement that would add this functionality for Company Emblems across any number or durable items such as cloaks, Signet Rings, Flags, and Banners as you suggest.

Goblin Squad Member

Having unique settlement flags that you could place where you want would be cool too. Bought in the cash shop too of course. Flags have a way to unite people so it would be a nice addition to the concept of loyalty to your organization and opposition to other organizations. I think the PVP would 'feel' better because of it.

Goblin Squad Member

Be careful when you start asking for anything related to a settlement to come from a cash shop. Unlike Companies, a settlement can be destroyed through PvP and then all that money will be gone and no refund. Imagine the crying if someone dropped a bunch of cash to beautify their settlement only to have it come under assault and destruction within a week.


Unless it's attached to a member of the Settlement. Though that puts the Settlement in the awkward position of being beholden to a single member.

I think it'd be best to attach the standard to a Company, then allow the Company to "lend" its standard to its patron.

Goblinworks Executive Founder

Notmyrealname wrote:
If GW likes the idea maybe they could monetize the use of custom flag designs by selling them in the store. We could submit our design and then pay to have them program it into the game with it being our own permanent company flag design that could be transferred to a new flag if we lose the first one.

I don't think that's going to happen. DLing textures in real time is very problematic in MMO. And you can't add them in game updates : textures are big files. If a few thousands players are making personalised textures on a daily basis, the game will weigh 240 Go the first year.


If there are gonna be a few thousand Companies being created on a daily basis, flags will be the least of GW's problems.

EDIT: Especially considering that that is just the fraction of them who pay.

Goblin Squad Member

Well I would still be happy with whatever generic designs GW makes and forget the ability to submit custom designs.

Goblin Squad Member

Audoucet wrote:
Notmyrealname wrote:
If GW likes the idea maybe they could monetize the use of custom flag designs by selling them in the store. We could submit our design and then pay to have them program it into the game with it being our own permanent company flag design that could be transferred to a new flag if we lose the first one.
I don't think that's going to happen. DLing textures in real time is very problematic in MMO. And you can't add them in game updates : textures are big files. If a few thousands players are making personalised textures on a daily basis, the game will weigh 240 Go the first year.

One cool way that Starsiege (an awesome mech game from long, long ago) made this available was by letting players upload and download player made mech skins from a website. You could create and upload as many as you wanted. A player looking for a skin could search through all the ones uploaded with various search functions and when they found one they liked they would download it. This was all player side.

You didn't have to worry about seeing stupid or inappropriate skins in-game because only the skins you download would appear and replace the normal ones.

But again, that was for a game a long, long time ago and how games are made has changed and new security features have to be taken into consideration. If anything this would be considered a 3rd party add-on and GW wouldn't be liable for the designs and safety of using them.

For a more modern approach check out APB: Reloaded.

Grand Lodge

Audoucet wrote:
Notmyrealname wrote:
If GW likes the idea maybe they could monetize the use of custom flag designs by selling them in the store. We could submit our design and then pay to have them program it into the game with it being our own permanent company flag design that could be transferred to a new flag if we lose the first one.
I don't think that's going to happen. DLing textures in real time is very problematic in MMO. And you can't add them in game updates : textures are big files. If a few thousands players are making personalised textures on a daily basis, the game will weigh 240 Go the first year.

I don't see why it would be any more difficult than setting up an upload service through the Cash Shop to import the image to the appropriate Company Specific items. These would of course have to be approved and reformatted for use by GW themselves but at the stage where they would have MTX enabled I assume they will be capable of developing a tool to make it simple enough.

I try to remember the fact that we are helping Crowdforge this game, and our desires, and hopes for the game can inspire the actual creation of the desired mechanics and systems, especially when it comes down to "If you program X feature, I will pay you Y for it."

And I would certainly pay MTX for my Company to have a custom Banner/Flag/Symbol available for "in game" use. I'd like to see a systems like the Community Workshop for Steam games available for players to submit equipment, clothing, and weapon designs/skins for use in game too, but that's going a bit too far as far expectations go I think.

Goblinworks Executive Founder

The problem isn't the upload, but the download.

Just like Ryan says I don't remember where, you must always imagine how a system will be affected, in a game with tens of thousands of players.

When you meet a character, you don't download his skin. You just download a little bunch of biometric info. But the textures of armors, weapons & races (dwarves…) are already in your game installation.

Imagine now arriving in a big fight, with 50 Companys on ech side, each with a personnal banner… :/


Even if there were fights with fifty companies, you'd have DLed most of them already.

Goblinworks Executive Founder

Well I ain't a dev', so we'll see anyway. :)

Grand Lodge

Lets say optimistically at OE there are 1000 Chartered Companies who bought this package. All that would mean is placing the appropriately integrated image file onto the database that supplies the player client with information. Sure it would have to retrieve them, but that task shouldn't be much more cumbersome for the system than displaying 50 different sets of equipment on PCs.

Goblin Squad Member

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I think constructing a guild crest from premade patterns and devices IG would work just fine. I don't see a need for custom crests to be imported.

Goblin Squad Member

Lord of Elder Days wrote:
I think constructing a guild crest from premade patterns and devices IG would work just fine. I don't see a need for custom crests to be imported.

I have seen this in lots of games and it works great.

I do think that having a visible symbol adds a lot to feeling apart of your company.

If we are shooting out ideas, I really like the idea of being able to put a company crest/symbol on my cloak. I think everyone is going to have a cloak or a cape so that would be an easy way of letting everyone where their company's "colors".

Goblin Squad Member

Notmyrealname wrote:

Does anyone like the idea of each Company being able to construct it's own Standard or Flag to carry into battles? There could be a variety of Standards ranging from a simple and easy to craft one that is just for looks to more useful and harder to make ones.

The harder to make ones could give increasingly better bonuses but cost more to construct. The down side would be that if you all die the Standard is captured. One Company could only have one active Standard at a time although they could own several.

Has this idea been talked about before? I thought it would add a lot to the gameplay to see groups in the distance and see a Standard flying over them. It would be cool in large battles too.

In one of the earlier blogs, GW said:

Quote:

Our solution was implements. These are a class of weapon that produces expendable effects ("expendables" is the general term, but for style reasons we also refer to them as "spells" for casters and "maneuvers" for non-casters). Implements are often at least a little bit magical, allowing us enough story leeway to explain why martial abilities run out over the course of a day. Example implements are:

...
An Aristocrat's Banner/Warhorn, which contains party-buffing maneuvers
...
https://goblinworks.com/blog/by-the-time-i-lose-it-im-not-afraid/

So if you're talking about the mechanical implementation of a Standard, I think GW agrees and has it in some level of development based on that quote.

Notmyrealname wrote:

Custom designs might be way down the road as far as what GW can do but there are a lot of possibilities for some generic designs that could be painted on your standard after you buy it from an NPC or something like that.

Most of the follow-up posts are about this second half of the OP. If we're talking about a small, simple graphic I don't see how that would be overwhelming for downloads. Make it limited, like a 100x100 or 100x200 pixel space.

EVE allows this for the big groups - basically the groups submit their icons and periodically CCP reviews and approves some, then releases them in a batch update with other updated game material. Maybe it could be limited to the larger Kingdoms down the road if GW finds it too staff intensive to do for all of the Companies.

For reference, here is the EVE bit:
https://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/Alliance_logo_submission_process

Liberty's Edge Goblin Squad Member

Bluddwolf wrote:
I want to carry giant, foam middle fingers into battle!

A washing line, full of women's knickers!

Goblin Squad Member

Roughshod wrote:

In one of the earlier blogs, GW said:

Quote:

Our solution was implements. These are a class of weapon that produces expendable effects ("expendables" is the general term, but for style reasons we also refer to them as "spells" for casters and "maneuvers" for non-casters). Implements are often at least a little bit magical, allowing us enough story leeway to explain why martial abilities run out over the course of a day. Example implements are:

...
An Aristocrat's Banner/Warhorn, which contains party-buffing maneuvers
...
https://goblinworks.com/blog/by-the-time-i-lose-it-im-not-afraid/

So if you're talking about the mechanical implementation of a Standard, I think GW agrees and has it in some level of development based on that quote.

[

Having to train up a skill before you can carry a standard into battle sounds pretty good.

Goblin Squad Member

Quote:
Having to train up a skill before you can carry a standard into battle sounds pretty good.

Yeah I think it is a cool design to give a little different functionality to the ACE roles when it comes to groups. They can participate in the large battles too. Fighters can also get it though so no one is left out when it comes to those banners. From the same blog post:

Quote:

The way the keywords for implements are designed, certain of them may have significant crossover, particularly among non-casting roles. For example, Fighters can use a Banner/Warhorn at nearly full effect, ...

Grand Lodge

Bumping this thread as an example of an ideal discussion thread void of feuding... er wait... um

Free cookies?!

The Exchange Goblin Squad Member

KotC Carbon D. Metric wrote:
Already working on our design.

Marsh Wardens has ours decided-but have asked an actual artist if they can render it for us--because none of us are one!

We're discussing Hammerfall's settlement flag. I'd personally like to see a symbol for Hammerfall, then the sigils of all of the Companies who make up Hammerfall included underneath as part of the Settlement flag.

And yeah, I'd likely pay for that. :)

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