Alouicious's page

ProfessorCirno wrote:

I'm sorry, but you cannot blame freelancers for writing material that your company went on to publish in your official splatbooks. That's what playtesting and editing is for! If it were one or two whoopsies that would be fine, but nearly all monk material outside the Core book is suddenly being changed and disfigured.

Like I said...

Sean K Reynolds wrote:

Flurry... is written in a confusing way that led to unclear interpretations by most people who read it.

Most people who read it interpreted it wrong, and based their development and editorial decisions based on that wrong interpretation.

...which you then published in official books, despite being based on a faulty reading of the rule?

Hmmmmmm.

Every class should be designed by somebody that loves it and reviewed by somebody that hates it.

What no that's idiotic. A class should be designed by someone that likes it and reviewed by people who balance it against the other classes as designed. That is how game design works. Well, ACTUAL game design, not whatever the f~&% SKR is doing over there.

but hey man, I mean there is no mythical or historical precedent for women fighters, I mean if you ignore the entirety of Irish/Celtic mythology or Greek mythology or holy s!+% this thread is sexist as hell

Alouicious wrote:

Then absolutely no one would build things in game, especially if structures are destructible. It'd be the ultimate win for griefers. A group of people spend months, possibly a year building their fortress, they finally see their plan come to fruition. Then a couple dudes with high level gear come in and level it in about an hour. WOO VERISIMILITUDE

I am not making a claim for realism for realisms sake...I am saying changing the world requires effort on the part of their characters...and those who are not willing to do the effort, make very little changes to the world. It will promote people working as teams to build greater works (as happens in RL) and will prevent random buildings being annoyingly strewn around the world.

And as for the idea that no one would do it...this is the thing I am my people are looking forward to most because we are all enjoy working together to build things. Any big task becomes easier with enough hands and time.

As to the high level dudes...I am not sure how that is applicable, because that is not what I argued for...I said it should take almost as long to tear down as it did to build.

What's that? Heh, sorry, new players and solo players, you don't get a house. But why not pay one of the bigger clans or guilds for boarding? What's that, can't afford it? Too bad, you're screwed. Have a good gaming experience!

Then absolutely no one would build things in game, especially if structures are destructible. It'd be the ultimate win for griefers. A group of people spend months, possibly a year building their fortress, they finally see their plan come to fruition. Then a couple dudes with high level gear come in and level it in about an hour. WOO VERISIMILITUDE

Scott Betts wrote:

BTLOTM wrote:

and the fact that its sequel was made by the worst video game company in the world.

This seems unnecessarily hyperbolic, and really, Obsidian's track record is only poor with overly-invested fanboys. They have Metacritic scores in the 80s for more than half their titles to-date.

Well KotoR 2 is a giant step down from KotoR 1, NWN2 was a giant step down from NWN1, and Fallout New Vegas was a poorly put together bug ridden barely playable game on release compared to Fallout 3. But they also had the advantage of being games that fanboys would flock to and buy straight out of release. I'll give you that I've never played Alpha Protocol, so they may have one good game they've developed. Regardless its more or less offtopic.

My point with including the toolset is simply that if included, people could make their own worlds like they did in NWN, which was one of the lasting things that made it popular.

You know what the difference is between Bioware and Obsidian, though? They actually patch their games. Even months after release. They also have far better writers than just about any game company in business today. And you are lying to yourself if you think New Vegas is any buggier than 3.

Neverwinter nights is a game that was largely helped by a strong playerbase, custom content, and the fact that its sequel was made by the worst video game company in the world.

Alpha Protocol was an underrated gem of a game with some of the best dialogue and reactivity I've ever seen and Fallout: New Vegas was the best RPG in the past few years*. You'd better check yo'self before you wreck yo'self.

(Not counting Skyrim, due to how recent it is)

If you want more specific criticisms, here they are!

First point of order: The gameplay was boring as hell. Even aside from one click combat, you had some really dull mechanics and gameplay choices. Oh boy! The concept of trudging out to a random cliff face, clicking on it a whole lot to get an arbitrary amount of ore, then loading it onto a pack animal (and if you don't have a pack animal, screw you!) and bringing it back to town so you can smelt it into ingots! Whoopie, who cares.

Second point of order: Great pains are made to point out the "choice" players have with regards to playstyle. Problem is, unless you have a great deal of knowledge of how the game worked, how the economy worked, what was useful/useless, etc, it was basically impenetrable.

You yourself admit that Ultima Online was terrible. My point was for Goblinworks to not emulate Ultima Online, I.E., not make a terrible game. You seem to be arguing something completely different.

VERISIMILITUDE

Having played Ultima Online when it was at it's peak, I can tell you, the same criticisms rang true then as they do now. Even before Everquest, WoW, and other MMOs changed the landscape, Ultima Online was Not A Fun Game. Which, really, is the most important thing here. Skyrim is different, if solely for the fact that it is a single player game. It's also, y'know, fun to play.

Ultima Online was not a good game. Saying Ultima Online was a good game is a concession of nostalgia. It was only played because it was the only option. When other MMOs were released, users fled like the world was burning. It was unfun, overly-complex, ugly, and completely inaccessible to anyone who hadn't been playing for years. If you weren't already at the top, there was essentially no reason to play.

Devs, if you are going to look at UO, look at it as an example of what not to do. Thank you.

Actually it's more, "Don't listen to the fanbase, they are only telling you what they personally want in complete disregard for what is actually functional, plausible or actually enjoyable for most people in the world."

The thing is, pen and paper mechanics are, in no way, shape, or form, suited for massive multiplayer online games. Like, at all.

The thing is, there will be no adventure, because serious playtesting requires technical knowledge of what is going on. You are not being paid/contracted to play the game and enjoy it, you are doing it to nitpick all of the glaring flaws in the game design. And that's after you've tried to find all the glitches and bugs present in the raw, untested code. And that requires constantly doing the same thing to see if it triggers anything. Repeat ad nauseum for just about everything in the game, and it will lose it's wonder and adventure pretty damn quick.

People keep bringing up the hypothetical "GM" in reference to this game, and I honestly want to know, how in the blue hell does anyone expect a GMing mechanic to work in an MMO?

Alouicious wrote:

Derek Vande Brake wrote:

The majority won't win.

Uh, you guys aren't the majority. The majority is the consumer base at large, not a bunch of people on a messageboard.

I apologize if you misunderstood me. My meaning was not to imply that the people on this messageboard were the majority of MMO players. It was to say that we should stop arguing as though we were trying to win an election.

That makes more sense. However, I do disagree. The people who are making this game apparently read this board, so if someone is posting toxic ideas or advice, people are going to try arguing them down, and they should.

Tyael Grundbunch has died of dysentary!

Here Lies Tyael Grundbunch

peperony and cheas

The majority won't win.

Uh, you guys aren't the majority. The majority is the consumer base at large, not a bunch of people on a messageboard.

You guys do know that playtesting is acutal, you know, work? You have to slog through barely functional pre-alpha segments several dozen times, just to find all the things wrong with it? It's not gonna be a fun romp through a fully realized game, it's gonna be a really long, really arduous process.

Arikiel wrote:

The main problem with player made instances is one of balance. Some skrubs will just design them as a way of giving themselves free overpowered loot. I suppose you could automatically generate drops based of of each monsters Challenge Rating but I dunno. /shrug

Frankly I'm hoping Pathfinder Online does away with the dungeon delving loot hounding crap that's so thoroughly saturated D&D and its derivatives.

If loot and magic items aren't a problem (but rather a quest is an opportunity to hone skills and forge a legacy) then custom quests become easier to provide for.

Then this runs the problem of "Walk to end of cave, win +5000XP" trash caves

Yes, I'm sure that would be a fantastic idea and not prone to a glut of lazily designed, poorly thought out, ill executed crap, or, being even more cynical, an empty room with overpowered loot in it.

My wishlist? One item.

Make everything that is possible in tabletop Pathfinder possible in PFO.

Done.

Hopefully this would include the ability to create player-run dungeons so you can still have an unpredictable, original, mastercrafted DM experience.

So... you want to play a Pathfinder campaign in Maptools?