Bringslite of Fidelis Goblin Squad Member |
Wyldethorne Goblin Squad Member |
None of the 3 starting ranged feats required me to slow down or stop when I tested it. I couldn't find any additional to buy, so maybe some do, but none of the 3 I tested did.
Just curious, did you visit the skirmish trainer? I had @ least 8-10 ranged attacks, and several rooted me while in use. One, Snap Shot, provided a small damage component along with a range 10 evade(jump back).
Leithlen |
@ Leithlen
At the end of the day, the bottom of the barrel, the final reduction; what is your point? That they should postpone EE? That they should not charge for EE?
First, thank you for asking a good question and for furthering discussion.
"At the end of the day, the bottom of the barrel, the final reduction", my suggestion would be that the EE should be delayed 3-6 months; long enough to finish the currently-implemented systems, but not necessarily add in additional systems. During this time, players who bought in at the EE level could be given access. Provided GW has the funds for this additional development time, I think that this will provide more players with a good feel for what to expect in EE, as well as take some of the "PLEASE RELEASE SO I CAN PLAY" pressure off of GW, allowing the community to provide unbiased feedback.
I had this discussion with some friends who are also following PFO with me before I got into the Alpha and they were talking about all of the Early Access opportunities they've had with various games and stated that they were never at a point that they were playable. I argued that GW was doing things differently and that the MVP wasn't intended to be a "paid beta" but a working game that lacked advanced features. I still feel that this is a viable concept for game development, but I feel that GW should set an example by really having a game with fully-functioning BASIC systems that players can enjoy while watching and participating in the development of advanced features. I believe in this concept, but I don't think PFO is there yet.
I'm still very interested in PFO and will play-test each of the new Alpha patches. If these next 2 patches get PFO to the "working, but feature incomplete state", I'll be all over these forums, on every relevant thread, stating how ready this game is and how excited I am to see everyone in it, but I'm concerned that the list of planned features for these next 2 patches doesn't quite get us there.
Leithlen |
Leithlen wrote:None of the 3 starting ranged feats required me to slow down or stop when I tested it. I couldn't find any additional to buy, so maybe some do, but none of the 3 I tested did.Just curious, did you visit the skirmish trainer? I had @ least 8-10 ranged attacks, and several rooted me while in use. One, Snap Shot, provided a small damage component along with a range 10 evade(jump back).
Ahh, I had not done that. I spent my time trying to train up melee combat since I was already destroying every mob I found within a 5 to 10 minute run of the starting town with just the starting ranged feats, so I didn't see much of a need to increase those and I wanted to see what I could do with melee.
It's good that some of the other abilities do root you while shooting. I'm guessing that some of the abilities I was using are either far-overpowered (as seems to be the case based on some other forum reading) or need to have a "standing still" requirement added to them as well.
Kadere Goblin Squad Member |
my suggestion would be that the EE should be delayed 3-6 months; long enough to finish the currently-implemented systems, but not necessarily add in additional systems. During this time, players who bought in at the EE level could be given access
So it boils down to the fact that you do not believe the game will be in a state worth paying for by Sept 15? If your suggestion is followed, the same group of people would all be playing, but nobody would be paying monthly. The money is the only non-sematic difference.
I'll turn this on its head, then. Let EE begin as scheduled, and if you do not believe that the game's state is up to where you think it should be, don't sub. Wait until you feel that it is worth paying for.
Leithlen |
That wasn't my point at all, but I'm not sure it's worth arguing.
I don't think the game will be ready to start a "playing for keeps" game. I think that once player's permanent characters are being affected by bugs in a game that they're now paying for, that opinions will quickly slide into very negative territory. You may feel differently, but history would tend to agree with my assessment. I think a lot of players will quit and either wait, or, as often happens, forget to come back when they get involved in something else. None of these are good for the future of PFO.
By delaying launch, no one is playing and everyone's still testing. This lowers expectations and makes players much more likely to stick around and help the development long-term.
Bringslite of Fidelis Goblin Squad Member |
Honestly, I would like to be sure that what doesn't work or work well (currently) is fixed, before new "inevitably buggy systems" are piled on. I don't want to see the Team get buried in bug fixes that take a long time (if ever) to get addressed. The current gaming crowd does seem to have a low tolerance for these things.
Good thing that PfO is being built on a shoe string. Good that it is made plain to those that look into it: This is MVP. That is really an area between customer and the developer, where the expectaions either meet (to some extent) or they don't.
I can see that they don't quite yet meet, for you. That is OK.
"Alpha build 6" is definately not ready to be billed as EE. Agreed. Let's see what "Alpha build 7 and 8" bring us. :)
I'll tell you this: I would pay to play this game (with working recipes and a few combat fixes) and I wouldn't play Rift for free.
Leithlen |
I'll tell you this: I would pay to play this game (with working recipes and a few combat fixes) and I wouldn't play Rift for free.
So, let me ask you an honest question then, as you did for me. I'd like to know so that I can go looking for the same thing that you've found.
Could you tell me why you would pay to play this and not Rift for free. I wouldn't play Rift for free either, but I've yet to see anything in PFO that sets it apart. We all know that we expect the game to develop into something we are far more interested in, but is there anything in there currently that excites you?
Kadere Goblin Squad Member |
That wasn't my point at all, but I'm not sure it's worth arguing.
I don't think the game will be ready to start a "playing for keeps" game. I think that once player's permanent characters are being affected by bugs in a game that they're now paying for, that opinions will quickly slide into very negative territory. You may feel differently, but history would tend to agree with my assessment. I think a lot of players will quit and either wait, or, as often happens, forget to come back when they get involved in something else. None of these are good for the future of PFO.
Ah - yes, ok, I did overlook that aspect of the equation. Fair enough then, I retract my (rather combatively toned, oops) statements.
I personally don't think the current bugs are game breaking. The missing features don't bother me at all, since everyone will be on the same page. I'm reminded of Vanilla WoW - there were some pretty vicious bugs in that, back in the day. But I understand and accept your point, event if I don't agree.
Nihimon Goblin Squad Member |
1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Stealth was useless! Those that say you used it to get by mobs, I think it was something else that got you by. Unstealthed with my shortbow, 25m every mob saw and turned to attack me. Maxed out stealth, stealthed and sneaking up from behind mobs, no LOS to me, at 25m they turned and attacked me. I tested this over 50 times. If you made it by mobs while stealthed, you just didn't get as close as you think.
Scarlette, I hate to even ask, but did you actually engage your Stealth Feat (by hitting X)? Or did you simply train up Stealth and assume that was all you needed to do?
I ask because I've talked to others who have verified significant reductions in aggro range when Stealthed.
I suppose another possibility is that you were trying to Stealth against higher-level or particularly Perceptive mobs...
Bringslite of Fidelis Goblin Squad Member |
Bringslite of Fidelis wrote:I'll tell you this: I would pay to play this game (with working recipes and a few combat fixes) and I wouldn't play Rift for free.So, let me ask you an honest question then, as you did for me. I'd like to know so that I can go looking for the same thing that you've found.
Could you tell me why you would pay to play this and not Rift for free. I wouldn't play Rift for free either, but I've yet to see anything in PFO that sets it apart. We all know that we expect the game to develop into something we are far more interested in, but is there anything in there currently that excites you?
Right now? I didn't mean that I would pay for "alpha build 6". Nothing much is different than most other options. If the things that are described are not introduced, not much will be different. I probably would move on.
I won't make that decision at such an early stage, though.
Scarlette Goblin Squad Member |
Scarlette wrote:Stealth was useless! Those that say you used it to get by mobs, I think it was something else that got you by. Unstealthed with my shortbow, 25m every mob saw and turned to attack me. Maxed out stealth, stealthed and sneaking up from behind mobs, no LOS to me, at 25m they turned and attacked me. I tested this over 50 times. If you made it by mobs while stealthed, you just didn't get as close as you think.Scarlette, I hate to even ask, but did you actually engage your Stealth Feat (by hitting X)? Or did you simply train up Stealth and assume that was all you needed to do?
I ask because I've talked to others who have verified significant reductions in aggro range when Stealthed.
I suppose another possibility is that you were trying to Stealth against higher-level or particularly Perceptive mobs...
Yes I engaged my stealth feat [x]. But I don't now if it was higher perception mobs. I tried Ogres, Goblins, Bandits and Wolves. Wolves and Bandits I would guess to be higher perception mobs and Goblins and Ogres lower. Though I don't have a way of knowing.
Bringslite of Fidelis Goblin Squad Member |
Being Goblin Squad Member |
KoTC Edam Neadenil Goblin Squad Member |
Honestly, I would like to be sure that what doesn't work or work well (currently) is fixed, before new "inevitably buggy systems" are piled on. I don't want to see the Team get buried in bug fixes that take a long time (if ever) to get addressed. The current gaming crowd does seem to have a low tolerance for these things.
lol .. yep
That is a sense of entitlement that comes from being brought up in the console generation where the hardware platform is not spectacular but because it rarely changes the games end up pretty much "plug and play". You buy an X-Box or PS3 game it just works.
Traditionally in the distance past part of the attraction of PC gaming was building a rig that "could play any game at awesome FPS" and working out weird user interfaces was a challenge. Those days are long gone :D Nor do we want to return to them.
However people do need to recognize there is huge difference between console games written for a certain specific bit of hardware that changes every 4 years and a PC game.
KoTC Edam Neadenil Goblin Squad Member |
My experience was that ogres had an astonishingly high perception skill compared to bandits and wolves.
It seemed to me that single Ogre Warriors were pretty unaware, but groups were more perceptive.
I assumed at the time that perception was giving a "chance" of detection and more ogres trying gave them more chance of someone rolling high.
However it works, if one monster in a group spots you they all do even if the other members are way out of normal range.
What I did not understand was why sometimes monsters would just stop fighting you and all walk away ? Is that becasue you killed whoever first spotted you? Whatever it is, its weird.
Bringslite of Fidelis Goblin Squad Member |
Being wrote:My experience was that ogres had an astonishingly high perception skill compared to bandits and wolves.It seemed to me that single Ogre Warriors were pretty unaware, but groups were more perceptive.
I assumed at the time that perception was giving a "chance" of detection and more ogres trying gave them more chance of someone rolling high.
However it works, if one monster in a group spots you they all do even if the other members are way out of normal range.
What I did not understand was why sometimes monsters would just stop fighting you and all walk away ? Is that becasue you killed whoever first spotted you? Whatever it is, its weird.
Hehe. I noticed that too.
Caldeathe Baequiannia Goblin Squad Member |
2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Could you tell me why you would pay to play this and not Rift for free.
My mileage: There's a couple of things.
1) We're not paying to play _this_, we're paying to play something two builds down the line. There are things that we know have been working in the past that are temporarily disabled, so even the product we saw on the weekend was not the state of the existing game, and there are two more updates spread over the next three weeks.
2) I like Pathfinder, and Lisa and the developers have earned some slack for me. Being part of building the final product is worth a little money to me.
3) I'm not even paying to play on Sept 15. My kickstarter $100.00 was exactly that. A kickstart. A chance to say "I'd like to see you try this." It could easily have come to nothing, as so many do. I considered what I was getting for the money, and it was 100% worth it, even if I never got to play the game. The fact that I get to play for three or four months is NOT something I am paying for. It's a thank you from Goblinworks for giving them a 100 bucks to take a chance. I will not be paying for anything until at least December or January, by which time they will have an MVP, or not. Only at that point would I be giving them any money to play the game.
Bringslite of Fidelis Goblin Squad Member |
Leithlen |
Leithlen wrote:snippedRight now? I didn't mean that I would pay for "alpha build 6". Nothing much is different than most other options. If the things that are described are not introduced, not much will be different. I probably would move on.
I won't make that decision at such an early stage, though.
Fair answer. I'm not making a decision just yet either, but most of the posting about the experience in Alpha was not matching up with my experiences or what friends of mine and I saw when watching the Twitch streams. I'm also not trying to be "that guy" who's predicting doom and gloom, which is again NOT my intention.
To clarify my intentions with posting my experiences: I was trying to post about issues that I experiences that I did not see others mentioning and that were not expressly covered in the preliminary patch notes for the next 2 Alpha versions. I didn't post about issues that have already been covered extensively (i.e. tooltips), nor did I bring up missing features that are covered in the preliminary patch notes for the next 2 Alpha releases (like trading and banking). Like you, I don't think that Alpha Build 6 is ready for EE, but I see a few issues that aren't covered in the upcoming patch notes that I think need to be addressed prior to the game being ready for EE. I was also trying to see what others were excited about in Alpha that I am apparently missing, as I saw a lot of people posting about thoroughly enjoying the game. I think, however, that many people who have been in Alpha are happy with the progress made and excited about the prospects that PFO offers. However, the recent reviews from players that are new to Alpha don't seem sharing that same excitement as they are expressing opinions based on the current state and not the progress. I don't think that players new to Alpha, who haven't been seeing the progress before their eyes are having that same experience and I was trying to put some thought into what issues are detracting from that experience. Most of the players will step into the game for the first time around EE (or a week beforehand) and the impression that those players get will be very important. I'm hoping that the next 2 patches really clean things up, but I see some gaps right now that I'm not sure are covered.
Ryan Dancey CEO, Goblinworks |
2 people marked this as a favorite. |
This is all really great feedback!
Two points I'd like to reiterate:
The $50 Explorer level is not unlimited. We have a plan to cap enrollment at around 20k and hold there to see how the system is responding under load. When we get 20k active paying players, we'll limit the number of new accounts that can be created monthly while we experiment with the system. If things are good we'll keep the throttle open. If we're seeing a lot of lag and other system issues, we'll work on them before we let the population grow again.
The short-term objective is to find 20k people who are committed to the idea of building a better sandbox MMO. The tradeoff is that in order to do that we have to build the game while people are playing it. Obviously, that's not an experience for everyone and we fully accept that. I think that 20k people, in comparison to the millions who play MMOs daily, is a very achievable number.
Someone asked earlier why play Pathfinder Online and not Rift for free. My answer is twofold.
1: The economy will be much more interesting. Virtually everything you use in a themepark comes from loot drops. Virtually everything you'll use in Pathfinder Online will be crafted by a player character. I saw in EVE how amazingly compelling that is and it's hard to explain or understand until you've seen it. The game loop of harvesting, transporting, crafting, and selling is fun, and not the kind of fun you get in Rift.
2: The social experience will be much more interesting. Even if you're lucky enough to play in a large organized guild in a themepark game you rarely do anything constructive with more than 20 other players. And that thing is usually doing a raid, which you've probably done many times before. The value is really the social fabric, friends, conversations, etc. There's very little "in game" value. In Pathfinder Online you're going to care A LOT about who you play with, what they're doing, what you're doing, how you can help each other, etc. That sense of actually doing something fun with people you like is really missing from games like Rift. And frankly, I think most people play games not World of Warcraft as solo adventures where they occasionally ad hoc with friends for small dungeons and trading, not as true "massively multiplayer" experiences.
You'll be able to engage in both of those kinds of experience on day one of Early Enrollment and I think that's the glue that will hold people to the game as we start.
Leithlen |
Leithlen wrote:Could you tell me why you would pay to play this and not Rift for free.[snipped]
3) I'm not even paying to play on Sept 15. My kickstarter $100.00 was exactly that. A kickstart. A chance to say "I'd like to see you try this." It could easily have come to nothing, as so many do. I considered what I was getting for the money, and it was 100% worth it, even if I never got to play the game. The fact that I get to play for three or four months is NOT something I am paying for. It's a thank you from Goblinworks for giving them a 100 bucks to take a chance. I will not be paying for anything until at least December or January, by which time they will have an MVP, or not. Only at that point would I be giving them any money to play the game.
VERY fair point. I had not thought of the subscription this way and I'm not sure that many others have or will either, but this is again a very good point. (Unfortunately, those that buy in at the $50 level actually have to make that first sub or not-sub decision at then end of month 2, not month 3.) Thank you for putting this into this perspective. I think you have a very healthy perspective on this.
To consider though: the results of a shaky launch can affect a game many months later. I'm hoping that doesn't happen, but I have seen this previously. Incomplete features and bugs are a much bigger deal in a live environment. I'd almost rather have the option to use the pre-bought sub a few months of beta, and have the game "launch" fully ready.
Leithlen |
...
My answer is twofold.
1: The economy will be much more interesting. Virtually everything you use in a themepark comes from loot drops. Virtually everything you'll use in Pathfinder Online will be crafted by a player character. I saw in EVE how amazingly compelling that is and it's hard to explain or understand until you've seen it. The game loop of harvesting, transporting, crafting, and selling is fun, and not the kind of fun you get in Rift.
2: The social experience will be much more interesting. Even if you're lucky enough to play in a large organized guild in a themepark game you rarely do anything constructive with more than 20 other players. And that thing is usually doing a raid, which you've probably done many times before. The value is really the social fabric, friends, conversations, etc. There's very little "in game" value. In Pathfinder Online you're going to care A LOT about who you play with, what they're doing, what you're doing, how you can help each other, etc. That sense of actually doing something fun with people you like is really missing from games like Rift. And frankly, I think most people play games not World of Warcraft as solo adventures where they occasionally ad hoc with friends for small dungeons and trading, not as true "massively multiplayer" experiences.
Thank you for your comments and exceptionally valuable feedback. Having played Darkfall Online and Mortal Online (which were both failed implementations of an open-world sandbox MMORPG concept), I fully appreciate those 2 sentiments. (Open-world Sandboxes are pretty-much all I'm looking for at this point.) My concern was that those 2 factors would take longer to take shape than people's patience. Your statements that these will be viable at launch (or even within the first month) are very encouraging! Could you possibly elaborate on how the experience of these 2 factors will be in the first month or so of EE?
Bringslite of Fidelis Goblin Squad Member |
Fair enough, and true that the game needs work. On the other hand, GW has pretty much met it's published goals.
You have to remember that most of the people in Alpha have been waiting and theorycrafting and scheming for a long time. Most of those people needn't pay another dollar to play 3-4 months into EE. Not much but "decent" progress (and a chance to romp) is needed to make them happy. After those free months, we will expect to see some polish. Not perfect, but some.
Is there something that was promised for Alpha build 6 that has not been delivered? Are peoples expectations the real problem?
Leithlen |
You have to remember that most of the people in Alpha have been waiting and theorycrafting and scheming for a long time. Most of those people needn't pay another dollar to play 3-4 months into EE. Not much but "decent" progress (and a chance to romp) is needed to make them happy. After those free months, we will expect to see some polish. Not perfect, but some.
This is sort of exactly what I'm concerned about. I think that the super-active community here has a different level of expectation than other sandbox players who will be needed to meet that 20k player-base goal.
Is there something that was promised for Alpha build 6 that has not been delivered? Are peoples expectations the real problem?
I don't think it's anything specific, but the EE goal has been a game where all the implemented features work, but not all the game features are implemented. With 2 patches left before the currently scheduled start of EE, there's some concern that there will still be features in an incomplete state. Development becomes more difficult after launch some as you have to deal with how it affects paying customers, so I could see an early launch as actually delaying the long-term game development.
Ryan Dancey CEO, Goblinworks |
1 person marked this as a favorite. |
@Leithlen - most of the crafting loop is already in the Alpha now. The only parts that aren't are a payment process and an item destruction process. As soon as people can do more than barter I think the economy will take off. And when stuff starts getting destroyed, it will really take off.
In the Alpha, today, you can harvest, transport resources to a Settlement, process the resources into intermediate crafting materials, and craft finished goods. Those goods are usable immediately by characters and are valuable if they have trained feats to match the keywords on the items crafted. That all works right now.
As to social, I see three things happening.
First is kind of a loosely organized effort where some people will want to be crafter/merchants and some people will want to be adventurers. The adventurers are going to come back with coin, with crafting components, and with recipes. The crafter/merchants are going to be able to take the recipes and components and turn them into better items for the adventurers. The coin should be the medium of exchange. A group playing together will be better at this at first than random players because the group will be able to set objectives (we need more iron and coal) and the random players will likely be all over the map not matching needs to inputs. (A market will quickly develop and arbitrage will level that imbalance but until it does the cohesive groups will have an advantage).
Second is War of Towers. This is going to provide an engine for a lot of the early Early Enrollment activity. Trying to take and hold Towers will benefit the initial PC Settlements. They'll need a lot of economic activity to support that effort, and specialist PvP characters too. The amount of emergent social behavior in this one system is almost limitless. I can't predict what will happen but I am pretty confident it will be epic.
Third is longer-range planning of people thinking about how to play the Kingdom Game as more systems get added and we move towards real territorial warfare and Settlement management. Groups are going to be constantly working towards goals that will require a lot of coordination. Once we get some of these systems nailed down and we can put Outposts and Points of Interest in, the Kingdom Game is going to really take off.
In the Alpha today you can form a party and in the Alpha later this week you should be able to form a Company. I suspect there will be Company-level forces active in the Alpha from here on out.
Saiph the Fallen Goblin Squad Member |
1 person marked this as a favorite. |
@Leithlen - most of the crafting loop is already in the Alpha now. The only parts that aren't are a payment process and an item destruction process. As soon as people can do more than barter I think the economy will take off. And when stuff starts getting destroyed, it will really take off.
In the Alpha, today, you can harvest, transport resources to a Settlement, process the resources into intermediate crafting materials, and craft finished goods. Those goods are usable immediately by characters and are valuable if they have trained feats to match the keywords on the items crafted. That all works right now.
As to social, I see three things happening.
First is kind of a loosely organized effort where some people will want to be crafter/merchants and some people will want to be adventurers. The adventurers are going to come back with coin, with crafting components, and with recipes. The crafter/merchants are going to be able to take the recipes and components and turn them into better items for the adventurers. The coin should be the medium of exchange. A group playing together will be better at this at first than random players because the group will be able to set objectives (we need more iron and coal) and the random players will likely be all over the map not matching needs to inputs. (A market will quickly develop and arbitrage will level that imbalance but until it does the cohesive groups will have an advantage).
Second is War of Towers. This is going to provide an engine for a lot of the early Early Enrollment activity. Trying to take and hold Towers will benefit the initial PC Settlements. They'll need a lot of economic activity to support that effort, and specialist PvP characters too. The amount of emergent social behavior in this one system is almost limitless. I can't predict what will happen but I am pretty confident it will be epic.
Third is longer-range planning of people thinking about how to play the Kingdom Game as more systems get added and we move towards real...
The point Leithlen is trying to convey (I think) is there doesn't seem to be enough core functions implemented to begin EE. You can barely target things, it's hard to comprehend what's going on when playing and the UI is, hmm, in need of improvement. Are any of these things a game killer? Of course not. But perhaps EE being released in September is a bit premature when there are many MVP areas in need of heavy modification.
I'd like my friends to be somewhat impressed by the functions and depth in EE; I just don't think that would happen as of now. Hopefully the next two builds will change my mind!
<Kabal> Daeglin Goblin Squad Member |
...The adventurers are going to come back with coin, with crafting components, and with recipes. The crafter/merchants are going to be able to take the recipes and components and turn them into better items for the adventurers. The coin should be the medium of exchange...
Couple of questions about currency related to a player crafting based economy. Unless there is starting gold, then it will gradually trickle in as people adventure and bring it back. Presumably, initially coins in player hands will be few. As more people play, more gold circulates, it will get used to buy gear, economy gets going, yada yada. But since all gear/goods come from other players, where do "gold sinks" come in? I mean, if gold comes in from PVE activity but is not soaked up in some manner by NPCs, than the circulating coinage in player-base hands only ever increases, right? Does training cost gold? Will some of the settlement upkeep costs be in coin eventually to act as a control on inflation? Will coin also be subject to destruction like items with character death?
Being Goblin Squad Member |
Almost certainly settlements will have to pay maintenance costs (say, to NPC workers) for settlement upkeep, to build features, to pay NPC trainers, and to pay factions for protection/guards in the off hours.
That means settlements will have a way to collect money, whether in taxes or a share of transactions or something else altogether.
Those are some ways I expect coin to exit the economic cycle. Item destruction also removes money from the system but more directly, from the individual player who bought that now destroyed item.
KoTC Edam Neadenil Goblin Squad Member |
Those are some ways I expect coin to exit the economic cycle. Item destruction also removes money from the system but more directly, from the individual player who bought that now destroyed item.
This might seem pedantic but item destruction removes value from the system but does not effect the money in circulation. That is an important distinction.
Money will be removed by paying for NPC items or services, players quitting and not giving away their "stuff", accounts being banned, NPC taxes if any.
Drake Brimstone Goblin Squad Member |
Being Goblin Squad Member |
Except where the character crafts his own, item destruction indirectly removes money from circulation if market transactions are taxed, and taxed money goes to NPCs, whether guards , maintenance workers, or trainers. Every drain counts, just as every penny counts. So far in alpha income is in coppers, as loot from bandits primarily. It isn't exactly high finance at this point. I suspect as settlements increase so too will their expenses.
KoTC Edam Neadenil Goblin Squad Member |
On a related note.
Is there going to be any sort of "chest" system implemented in alpha once 25% non-threaded destruction begins so players do not need to adventure with all their worldly goods and risk losing 25% of everything? Encumbrance limits will also soon become an issue with nowhere to store stuff.
KoTC Edam Neadenil Goblin Squad Member |
Except where the character crafts his own, item destruction indirectly removes money from circulation if market transactions are taxed, and taxed money goes to NPCs, whether guards , maintenance workers, or trainers. Every drain counts, just as every penny counts. So far in alpha income is in coppers, as loot from bandits primarily. It isn't exactly high finance at this point. I suspect as settlements increase so too will their expenses.
Too much NPC tax and people will just barter :D
In terms of inflation of the in-game currency, the significant point where money leaves the system is the purchase of the item when tax is incurred, after that it really does not matter whether items are used forever, stored and forgotten or destroyed as unthreaded items the very next time the purchaser leaves town :D
Caldeathe Baequiannia Goblin Squad Member |
<Kabal> Daeglin Goblin Squad Member |
If I recall correctly, until coins are banked and converted to skymetal bits, they are destroyable at death or lootable. Once converted, they may be used to buy in game things, as well as training time, which will remove them from circulation.
I didn't realise it was coppers dropping in Alpha. That will take a while to build up :)
And thank you, I didn't know about the conversion to skymetal - so much to learn still.
Nihimon Goblin Squad Member |
Leithlen |
The point Leithlen is trying to convey (I think) is there doesn't seem to be enough core functions implemented to begin EE. You can barely target things, it's hard to comprehend what's going on when playing and the UI is, hmm, in need of improvement. Are any of these things a game killer? Of course not. But perhaps EE being released in September is a bit premature when there are many MVP areas in need of heavy modification.
I'd like my friends to be somewhat impressed by the functions and depth in EE; I just don't think that would happen as of now. Hopefully the next two builds will change my mind!
Very well said. You captured my thoughts exactly. Thank you for the very productive conversation everyone.
Stephen Cheney Goblinworks Game Designer |
Caldeathe Baequiannia wrote:If I recall correctly, until coins are banked and converted to skymetal bits...Whoa! In-game Coin does not convert to Skymetal Bits.
Skymetal Bits are the Cash Shop currency that you buy with real-world money.
Correct. We somewhat flippantly refer to your unlootable currency as being deposited in the "magic sky bank" but that shouldn't imply that it's becoming skymetal bits. It's still regular coin.
KarlBob Goblin Squad Member |
Once they're banked they're no longer objects that reside in particular places, they're abstracted into the global financial system.
This is one of the issues that have been discussed at great lengths in previous threads. Some people really want money to always consist of physical coins, contributing to encumbrance and requiring wagon-loads of coin for large purchases. Goblinworks isn't going that way.
In terms of immersion and verisimilitude, many home games don't go to that extreme either, except for the occasional dragon hoard that can barely be transported back to civilization. If I'm not mistaken, the Pathfinder Society Organized Campaign assumes that characters use banks with convenient offices at Society chapter houses. Without some level of abstraction, low strength but high level characters would need to hire porters just to carry their wallets to the market.
KoTC Edam Neadenil Goblin Squad Member |
Once they're banked they're no longer objects that reside in particular places, they're abstracted to the global financial system.
Considering banking pretty much has been around since the first Templars realized that escorting 20 bags of gold from Rome to Paris and meeting half way another bunch of Templars coming the other way escorting 20 bags of gold from Paris to Rome for a different customer was an exercise in futility I think it is historically pretty accurate to have centralised money.
Whether other items such as raw materials and armor should also be accessible anywhere is questionable. I would hope not.
KarlBob Goblin Squad Member |
KarlBob wrote:Once they're banked they're no longer objects that reside in particular places, they're abstracted to the global financial system.Considering banking pretty much has been around since the first Templars realized that escorting 20 bags of gold from Rome to Paris and meeting half way another bunch of Templars coming the other way escorting 20 bags of gold from Paris to Rome for a different customer was an exercise in futility I think it is historically pretty accurate to have centralised money.
Whether other items such as raw materials and armor should also be accessible anywhere is questionable. I would hope not.
As far as we know, you'll be able to open the market in Thornkeep and see what's for sale in Fort Inevitable*, but physical goods won't be magically delivered around the world. Someone will have to carry them from place to place. Someone will probably be along to guard them, because someone will probably be out there waiting to intercept and steal them.
*If the game didn't show us global price data, cartels would just place characters in all the major market hubs and display the prices on Web sites anyway.
Leithlen |
I don't think coins need to have weight and contribute to encumbrance (although this was something DragonRealms did and it added quite a bit of interest), but I really hope we can't buy anything anywhere with "global currency". It's going to remove a lot of possibilities for banditry and create "artificial" transfer of goods by selling something at one town, traveling risk-free to another, and just buying it there. Coin suddenly has the potential to become a "matter transporter" and I really hope that global banking either isn't something GW is planning to implement, or is something that they reconsider.
Urman Goblin Squad Member |
Too late. Ryan explained the reasoning at some length here and elsewhere in the same thread. They have more/better control of the economy with global coin.
KarlBob Goblin Squad Member |
Coin isn't a matter transporter. Only the coin floats in the weightless void. The physical goods you buy with it have to be carried from place to place. If you want to buy low and sell high, you're going to need a caravan to move those goods from Low-Town to High-City.
Under the currently proposed system, when an NPC bandit drops coins, they're physical objects. Until the adventurer who killed the bandit returns to a settlement, those coins can be taken by a PC bandit. When the adventurer returns to a settlement (Or some POIs? We don't know.) then the coins are deposited into the settlement bank, and they're untouchable by bandits, PC or NPC.
There's a very definite possibility that PC bandits will lurk along the roads leading from the Emerald Spire back to the nearest settlement. Adventurers who've fought their way deep under the spire may be very experienced NPC-killers, but the PC bandits waiting for them will probably be very experienced PC-killers.
Edit: What Urman said, too.
Edit 2:
Considering banking pretty much has been around since the first Templars realized that escorting 20 bags of gold from Rome to Paris and meeting half way another bunch of Templars coming the other way escorting 20 bags of gold from Paris to Rome for a different customer was an exercise in futility I think it is historically pretty accurate to have centralised money.
According to Wikipedia, it looks like the Templar banking system got established in the late 1100s AD. I'd easily accept the proposition that most of Golarion is more advanced than most of Europe in the 1100s. (Considering all the magic, I'd say it's substantially more advanced.)
TEO Papaver Goblin Squad Member |
Tyncale Goblin Squad Member |
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Hot debate!
I honestly think that an UI that gives better feedback, some form of marketplaces where people can start to unload and buy resources, storage and a thorough look at targeting and maybe Melee-viability, are needed to put the "V" in MVP.
And if I am really honest, I think the game becomes truly viable for a larger crowd when players can actually put those resources and crafteed good to the use of building their settlement and putting down buildings, if only at a single building at first.
Not so much for us alpha and EE folk, because we see the bigger picture and probably will be happy enough with the Towergame, and stockpiling resources and refined/crafted goods for the future, but for those 20k that still need to be attracted. If their harvesting and crafting can be put to such an important use right away, I can see them stay, and take all the clunkiness of an MVP on the side. 20k is a lot of players, if you want them to stay beyond the first purchase. And in PFO this is a requirement, it is not that they can come back once a month and give it another shot. Therefore I think any comparison with Rust is dangerous: Rust requires a minor, one-time investment. That is easy to overcome.
So I am hoping that those proto-settlements will be implemented ASAP. I think GW will struggle in reaching that 20k untill then.
Anyway, can't wait to log into the next alpha build. :D
KoTC Edam Neadenil Goblin Squad Member |
1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Hot debate!
Not so much for us alpha and EE folk, because we see the bigger picture and probably will be happy enough with the Towergame, and stockpiling resources and refined/crafted goods for the future, but for those 20k that still need to be attracted.
This is the issue I think.
The kickstarter people are excited about being in the game from the start and "crowdforging the game". To a certain extent IF the game was close to complete come EE many of us would be disappointed as we paid in under the impression we would be helping create the game as it grew.
The rest of the 20K people that Ryan talks about will however be signing up to pay for a working game they hope to play, albiet in development, and will have quite different expectations.