Al Smithy's page

"think all the negativity and attempts at sabotage may eventually bring it down"

I lol'd pretty hard at that, thank you. Because Goblin Work's own ineptitude would have nothing to do with this game failing.

Only a good deal if you think the value of Destiny's Twin accounts is higher or will go up.

If you think this game project will be shut down within a year, liquidating your Destiny's Twin games now for whatever you can get is a smart play.

Obviously, only time will tell.

It might surprise you to learn that some people are putting money into several games at the same time. I am currently funding 3 different kickstarters, and putting monthly money into a lame-duck game that may fail rather soon, would seem a waste of money as opposed to putting it into a different one that has a better chance of succeeding.

Despite not thinking the game will succeed, that doesn't mean I don't wish it would.

But as an outside observer, I bet that if Golgotha stopped killing gatherers and focused their PVP efforts on fighting over towers, you'd be able to end up in a situation where each side has 6 towers they don't have to worry about defending, and 3 towers in the middle that swap back and forth and generate enjoyable organized PVP for both sides, instead of both sides being unhappy.

Man you are so naive. Don't you realize that Brighthaven and Xeilias set up some kind of agreement to not fight *before* because it was determined that Brighthaven has such overwhelming numbers they can't be fought off?

I don't even play now, and yet I know all this from all of the forum discussions.

Because the character progression power curve is so low in later levels, a higher level or even highly skilled player can only do so much when outnumbered. As stated in design goals, less skilled players in small groups should be able to take down a single highly skilled player.

As such, numbers are all that matters in this game.

And as such, it should be expected that the group with the most numbers gets to control the map.

In this case, it sounds like Brighthaven decided to reneg on it's agreement to not engage in the Xeilias and Phaeros battle, and then went up and take all of Xeilias towers.

It wasn't just some kind of reciprocal punitive strike, they took all of their towers. That really says something doesn't it?

The Brighthaven alliance people have the numbers to essentially shutdown the next biggest bloc of people, whenever they want.

And here you have their minions suggesting that the Xeilias folks are bad guys for striking out in the only way they can feasibly retailiate against the Brighthaven people, via guerilla warfare.

Telling the Golgotha people to sit back and try to retake their towers is the most ridiculous thing, because clearly they didn't have the numbers to keep them from all being capped in the first place.

Part of the problem, of course, being that "people" are using "people" as though it means everybody

No, I didn't mean everybody, I meant specifically the people who posted on the forums they did not like non-consenual PvP at all. The threads are there, I read them. I also read the threads on here pertaining to that Blackwatch people or whoever they were. But I get what you're saying.

If somebody doesn't want any PvP, then it doesn't matter whether they ragequit or exited gracefully, because they don't belong in PFO.

Yeah, pretty much. It's too bad that Goblin Works and Paizo blew their marketing wad on a bunch of people who apparently fell into that category. I guess the rest of the evaporation of the playbase can be accounted for by the bugginess of each update.

People don't want meaningless PvP. People don't want PvP that deliberately targets inexperienced players around starter areas. But that doesn't mean they don't want PvP.

Then all those people who have posted on the forums that they didn't want PvP at all, and ragequit the game because of PvP are just bad at typing?

I'm willing to bet that your stipulation only comes close to being true because most of the staunchest anti-PvP people have already ragequit, and the most active PvP-centric groups or sub-groups have already left as well. What is left behind is likely just the people who have crafting alts who will switch characters to engage in PvP when it appears there are more than a dozen people online playing the game.

my fear is that like so many MMOs before it, it will be dead inside a year of release. And that would be a criminal waste of the IP.

I suspect that many folks (except the most deluded of fanboys) probably are afraid it won't even make it to "official" release.

Recent marketing behaviors by Goblin Works, such as the Buddy Program and premature Head Start promo, seem like bad ideas when the game is still so buggy and feature-weak, and yet they are pushing those things out anyway. Makes them look desperate to attract new sign-ups.

Well, technically official release is probably still 14-16 months away.

What the access is now is really more like a paid early access beta.

If you're trying to play on a Mac, I remember reading the OS/X version has stability issues right now.

You perseverance is admirable. Do you intend to stay independent?

You're well spoken and thought out about your idea for what sounds like making PFO a RTS/MMO -

- but it isn't going to happen.

GW is having enough trouble trying to make it a standard perspective MMO.

I'll probably be playing Crowfall or Camelot:UC betas then.

Either way, don't want this game to fail, just don't have any confidence that GW knows what they're doing.

huh? Do you even log in?

I had not for a month or two, then finally did again for the last patch.

Lots of empty settlements. Game is super buggy.

I don't believe PFO will be around for another year, much less 10, if GW is so desperate they are blowing their open enrollment wad with this head start thing.

There were and still are, too few systems for even what a minimal viable product would be.

I saw on the GW blog that they are doing this Head Start thing now, seems like a push to try to get more beta participants.

People keep throwing around this MVP "Minimum Viable Product" concept like they understand it to mean the smallest amount of features that constitute a game, but fail to realize that the most critical aspect of the idea is the word "viable".

Clearly, what Goblin Works estimated to be "viable" was incorrect, as they are now drawing on their last cohort of early adopters to keep alive the game world or worse, their finances.

If there were actual static high level content I feel people would have something to focus on, plan for and fight over.

Isn't that supposed to be holdings and settlements?

It doesn't matter which direction they choose if they cannot even make a patch without breaking big parts of the game. It sounds like from the forums that this latest update was another mess.

I would pay real cash money to have one of those mountain goat mounts that would let you run up the side of a mountain.

They were the coolest part of that movie!

Then edit your post and remove the link.

If you haven't logged in since January, I'm pretty sure those accounts only have one month of experience accrued.

I'm in the process of waiting 18 days to buy my next level of Tanner. Don't tell my company leader, Fierywind, but I sometimes give myself permission to buy 100 or 200 xp of combat skills every three or four days.

Are you not allowed to spend your exp as you wish?

That sounds pretty lame.

Well, I guess all of that would make sense, since apparently everywhere on the map besides the SE is mostly empty.

I can't imagine who is going to attack your holdings though. Based on the numbers differential in those settlement/tower reports, you'd have enough people to defend your own outposts and destroy anybody else's whenever you like.

You'd have to be either stupid or monumentally bored to do so. But then, I can't really find a good reason to keep my account active so I imagine boredom will probably suffice for some folks.

Auction Houses would probably have more life if people needed equipment, but it sounds like everybody has what they need now. And since there is very little of anything going on, not much equipment is lost. Sounds like generally it is just a how bunch of nothing going on. Am I right?

It's probably more of a symptom of so few people playing this game, and the ones who are made up their web of alliances more than a year ago.

I decided to look more closely at the game and see if I would play again, been since the beginning of EE I think. I looked through the patch notes, but can't point to any significant and interesting feature that has been added since I stopped playing that would make me interested in patching up the game.

I have a feeling the reason there is so much forum-related drama and bickering is because the game is boring and people spend all their times scouring the forums for something interesting to engage themselves with.

I doubt any of the prominent people on the forums are going to be lost to games like Crowfall. The people you will lose to Crowfall are the ones who have been silently watching PFO's development to see what it will turn into, and haven't yet bought into it, and probably never will.

2/10

Many of us in the EBA have had our characters jumped and killed by NC folks where they were outnumbered, yet you don't see us coming to forums complaining about it or doing so in game

Did you completely miss everything that has happened on the forums for the last month? Or do you have selective attention?

Let me recap for you what I've been able to glean from the forum drama:

One of the larger semi-independent companies in game, that Gemstone company stopped doing any banditry of any kind apparently because of the complaints from EBA.

And additionally, Gologtha has now seemingly stopped doing raiding as well after the players in Blackwood Glade (an EBA settlement) complained on the forums here and some rage quit.

It seems to me that Goblin Works doesn't realize that hex chat is useful for many more things than just recruiting.

What is the range for being able to chat with somebody via Local?

If it is basically standing next to somebody else, then Local is worthless I would say.

Wait, so wasn't that Local chat limited to like people standing right next to you. So now you can only either chat with everybody in the game or somebody standing right next to you?

I thought Goblin Works was "crowdforging" this game. Did a lot of people ask for hex chat to be removed?

Golgotha have chosen to label themselves as Evil, the onus is on them and their players to live up to it. Shirking that responsibility because it is difficult, while hiding behind the veil of provocative discussions is really just a disservice to serious role players.

I just noticed this today. It is plainly obvious you were writing a parody of a comment I made in another thread, lol almost word for word, and posted it here because you think I am a member of this Golgotha group. I'm not, never was, and I don't play the game, haven't for more than a month or two now. Just kind of lurking and observing and commenting until the game shows more promise.

As an observation - I think the NC's biggest problem is that they are in a self-inflicted alliance between the two groups that are the most obvious aggressors. By deciding on a course of non-aggression between the LE groups (led by Golgotha?) and the CN bandit groups (led by Aragon?), they effectively shut down their best potential source of PvP - each other.

Near as I can tell from forum posts about settlement populations, and comments on other threads from various specific companies or settlement leaders, this doesn't seem to be the case.

It looks like Freevale is apparently defunct or their owner person stopped playing the game? And from all of the forum posts it sounds like the original company owning or currently owning Aragon the unnamed ones never showed up or didn't figure out how to compete in PvP. That gemstone group, who doesn't sound like they really follow Aragon anyway, they seem to be the real significant numbers puffing up Aragon's size, but it also sounds like they stopped doing banditry a while back and are mainly just doing crafting and escalation stuff now.

So, it seems to me the NC that's northern coalition right? It seems it isn't even really a thing. It sounds more like its just the Golgotha players on their own with a few decent sized companies agreeing to some kind of non-aggression thing for practicality (because of proximity).

...he says, not actually taking Erian up on the offer. Something something hot gas.

A paladin's quest to prove and maintain her own righteousness is in the end, her own quest.

Al, I'll make you an offer. You have portrayed yourself as a master of roleplaying with regard to alignment. I suppose you may be reluctant to offer us advice as we are a enemy to you.

I am nobody's enemy I haven't played since about the second week of early enrollment.

provide any wy for us to better implement our policy in compliance with your definition of Good within PFO, I will champion your advice to be implemented throughout the EBA. I'll extend this offer to anyone that can better portray our Good alignment in game-allowable actions.

That is very wise. That is the Erian I like. Glad to see you back.

Best of luck.

Tink,

Yes, more or less.

Claiming EBA is LG is not one of them...we have tried to make that clear several times.

On the political map, nearly every EBA settlement has Good in it's description. So, the "Good" descriptor is at the very least the primary alignment in question.

If you kill another player for harvesting "your" nodes, and it is a non-PvP hex. You will get flagged as an attacker/aggressor. You will lose reputation.

That is clearly in game terms, a crime.

How is that Lawful Good?

I don't bother with diplomacy on someone who is proving himself disinterested in actual, meaningful conversation. Why would I do so? I reserve diplomacy for Phyllain, Bluddwolf, Atheory, and others that actually engage in meaningful conversation framed by our environment. You cannot contribute to the conversation by pulling from resource not available to us.

You keep using that word meaningful, as a way to undercut the gravity of my words as a way to making them seem "meaningless". I'm just stating a set of truths. I don't need to provide you with examples on how to play Lawful Good. You need to demonstrate that you are able to play as Lawful Good because you want to play as Lawful Good. If you cannot do so then you are not Lawful Good.

Still waiting for that reasonable, valuable contribution to the conversation.

Value is in the eye of the beholder. My wit may come wanting for some, but I think it is valuable for anybody interested in actually roleplaying in this game that people adhere to the tenets of alignments, so people don't just say they are one thing when they clearly are doing the other.

Don't become exasperated friend. I know you wish to roleplay as a diplomat, but I fear your endurance is waning.

So, your answer is "Yes, i refuse to engage in a meaningful conversation." then? You argument basically says we, as Good, must allow anyone to enter any hex, strip mine it to dust, and walk away unharmed. Give me a reasonable, Good response to that. Or admit to having nothing to add to the conversation.

I've been having a splendid and meaningful discussion here. The fact that you reach the above conclusion and line of thought makes me doubt your diplomatic chops. It's almost adversarial. Have you actually been in a real negotiation before?

I'm laying out clear concepts for what it means to be Lawful Good. They aren't my own inventions.

If you cannot describe a way to fit within the bounds of those rules, which are well known to anybody who actually roleplays, then that is your problem. Trying to shuffle the responsibility of showing cause to me is a rather amateur tactic.

You're funny. Misinformed, but funny.

No, what is funny is reading from you guys how you want to be one thing, and yet say you are another thing. It's a marvelous circle of hilarity.

At present, holdings, escalation rewards, and resource nodes are limited resources. Character lives are fully, immediately, renewable

You even have your non-violent diplomat essentially saying that life is cheap, so yeah killing players is fine.

It seems you really want to play as Lawful evil, but for some reason won't come out and admit it.

Al Smithy wrote:

I think many a true Ranger would take offense to your supposition that you "own" the trees and the rocks and the essences of the world.

LMAO

That's a Druid you are describing there, Mr. Know-it-all.

Yes, I can tell you must be a great lawyer. Is your favorite rebuttal during cross-examination, "Liar liar pants on fire!"

Without that, I see continued calls of "look at the evil EBA" as just refusing to engage in constructive conversation.

You have chosen to label yourselves as Lawful Good, the onus is on you and your players to live up to it. Shirking that responsibility because it is difficult, while hiding behind the veil of provocative discussions is really just a disservice to serious role players.

I ask again, what is a reasonable Good response other than what we've outlined? Without that, I see continued calls of "look at the evil EBA" as just refusing to engage in constructive conversation.

I reasonable good response would be something other than execution. If you cannot think of another response besides that, or if the game doesn't provide a suitable option for your means, then honestly that is either a failure in imagination on your part or a failure of the game to create an adequate role-playing environment.

And what else is morality but the long standing tradition of legality? Are you suggesting an absolute authority beyond the pantheon of gods who would not agree on a single moral/law anyways?

The question of the nature of morality has been debated in philosophy for thousands of years. Do you really think we're going to solve it right here and right now?

You do not see stealing as a moral offense?

Is making a campfire from the twigs of a tree in the forest stealing?

If somebody camp up to one of these proposed outpost things and took from it, that is clearly stealing.

I think many a true Ranger would take offense to your supposition that you "own" the trees and the rocks and the essences of the world.

How do you justify the evil bit? The fact that in that statement the law is enforced by threat of temporary death? Or just that the law is enforced ?

The punishment should fit the crime.

Killing a person for killing horrid monsters, for peacefully harvesting flowers, for building a place to warm their feet in the wilderness - mostly definitely not Good acts.

Those on the side of Evil have the intention of sowing discord and holding the Good to an impossible standard.

It is tough to roleplay Lawful Good properly.

In other words, it reads that traveling through EBA territory is a totally safe prospect so long as we don't see you clearing our escalations, harvesting our nodes, or occupying our holding-spaces. Doing one of those 3 actions without our permission in our territory means you are taking your life into your own hands. As such, the policy really does read no different from Golgatha's, with the exception that we clearly grant safe passage to passers-through without them having to declare their intentions (Golgatha may not require a declaration of intention, but it has always been heavily advised). That's the "friendly and welcoming part."

Lawful Evil.

Killing is not always evil according to alignment theory. A distinction can also be made between "killing" and "murder".

This is a good read:
http://easydamus.com/lawfulgood.html

The difference between Lawful Good and Lawful Evil is how the laws are carried out. ... And unfortunately, the game only allows one punishment, getting sent to the respawn shrine.

Nobody ever said playing Lawful Good is easy.

And as the big man said, "Hard is Fun".

You kill players without a valid in-game flag and your Lawful Good card is revoked in my opinion. Skirting around that would make a mockery of people who actually try to roleplay Lawful Good faithfully.