Andius's page

Doesn't seem like griefing to me. It's not like they are some 3 year old twinks constantly hanging around the newb spawns. Newb vs. newb fights can actually be fun for both sides. It's RPKing but there are no rules against that.

Anyway I like your spunk. Give 'em hell.

I think I got twitch well and truly out of my system lugging PCs and glass screens to LANs playing Doom and Quake and then Half Life and the dust map over and over in the first Counterstrike and Unreal Tournament and the first Tribes and eventually stuff like BF 'nam and a dozen other games I cannot even remember.

Apart from which its pretty hard combatwise to compete with the immersion of a full real historical combat flight sim server with Hotas and Pedals and FFB stick and headtracking with no icons no targeting and having to identify enemies entirely by visuals when there are a dozen planes in the air doing crazy stuff at 600kmh in the rain over Russia.

But i can see why the kids brought up on XBox like it and its probably where the big money is. Though a lot of those games have a huge churn with a small hardcore that play 24/7 and stick around.

Thing is if I wanted to play a twitch game with crazy resolution graphics where you can max level in a week or two and then slag off in chat at everyone - there are stacks of choices out there already I am looking for something different.

You first compare any level of twitch to the most extreme examples available when I explicitly stated I feel most MMO players want something between the two extremes such as the targeting found in ESO. Mind not to touch your thermostat if you feel a little chilly. HEAT IS WHAT THEY USE TO TORTURE YOU IN THE FIERY DEPTHS OF HELL!!!!!!!!

Then you go on to rant about a bunch of things you don't like that have nothing to do with the mechanics we are discussing but happen to be in many of the extreme twitch based games you use to frighten children old men. False logic and not relevant to the discussion at hand.

Although we have a responsibility to make things right, and sometimes these things aren't blown out of proportion and fixed right away, I personally feel that a third party is attempting to cause strife among NAP signatories, or perhaps between our two nations.

Our official title is the Unsold Accounts of Andius or the UAA. I've managed to split my multiple personalities into multiple physical beings as well as AI representations of me that have infiltrated every major power in this game.

The ultimate goal is to cause you all to hate eachother so much that you grief eachother into leaving the game and PFO shuts down.

Then I'm going to buy Zog, convert it into a computer chair, and sit on it in my boxer shorts and a crimson bath robe drinking bourbon and puffing a cigar while laughing maniacally.

@Andius

You are a very disgruntled person.

I have to ask, do you remember the meeting you had with me when it wasn't Golgotha, but New Liberthane and the Order of the Crimson Knights?

Funny how things turn out.

I remember the jist but not many of the particulars. If I remember right that was just after I had come back from a leave of absence and TEO's activity had declined severely because when the person I left in charge (Jak Blitz) also ran into issues that tore him away from the game none of the active membership made any effort to keep things going.

We were originally hoping to create a TEO / Crimson Knights merger to revive activity but it kind of fell through. I ended up creating the Brighthaven initiative and engineering the CotP merger instead. While no other groups joined Brighthaven and few CoTP members showed interest in PFO the internal discussions stirred up enough excitement and activity within TEO to get us out of the slump.

In hind sight I think I cast raise dead on TEO instead of ressurection. Even under my leadership I think TEO lost some of the drive to achieve it's original vision to a race to get as many active members as possible. I probably should have just let it rest in peace instead of becoming PFO's first necromancer.

I'm fairly certain the majority of the outspoken members of the PFO community want as little twitch as possible while the majority of MMO consumers fall somewhere between the extremes of tab targetting and full manual aim.

I advertized PFO in the DF community back when I believed in this title. Most of them quickly dismissed it outright because it was tab-targeted. Back in that day the word on tab-targetting was that there was a great ammount of space to explore between traditional tab-targetting and full manual aim. Not exploring that space is one of the poor decisions you get pushed into when you market your MMO primarily to table top gamers and then listen to majority rule.

Have you tried Darkfall? It has by far the most intense fights I've seen in any game since Freelancer, the downside being it's incredibly harsh on anyone without a great machine, fast connection to their server, and viper like reflexes.

Depending on your hardware, macro skills, and twitch skills it may be right up your alley.

Beyond the full manual aim, custom classes, and large ammounts of movement/throw type abilities you also do double damage if you hit your target in the back. ;)

Honestly it's actually probably the most intense PVP game I've ever played. Too intense for the Alaskan connection I was playing it on.

Oh I know how your process works. That's why I find this so hillarious. Aragon is making a mockery of it and I'm loving it.

It's funny to watch you sit there tangled up in the chains you constructed yourself when your enemy has quite clearly back handed you with their gauntlet and is now openly taunting you.

Though I suppose such legal proceedings are a great excuse to hide behind if you want to put off telling your Carebear Crew it's time to go to war for as long as humanly possible. I mean because if Aragon so flippantly mocks your treaty and you disregard it, it would show you have no power to enforce such things.

I actually believe the official story GW gave which is that they went with custom forums for reasons of control over the code and being able to build them exactally the way they want. But really, I'd say that was an incredibly bad call. They obviously need to be focusing their efforts like a laser on the content of their game. Plenty of very successful games use pretty standard forums.

If Ryan wants to talk about things being a poor usage of their resources custom forums are probably at the very top of that list until he's wiping his butt with dollar bills like The folks over at Cloud Imperium Games.

To be clear I consider EVE to have an extremely mediocre crafting system as well. Examples of good crafting systems would be Mortal Online and Wurm Online.

For Example if you want to make a sword. You pick the blade type you want and the hilt you want. You then choose the materials that go into those specific components. Such as say the base and wrapping of the hilt. This might be any type of wood, bone etc. for the base. There are many types of leather and fabric you might use to wrap it. Each of these are going to give different properties. Some weapons will have a lighter weight. Some do more damage. Materials largely effect the draw strength of bows etc. most resources are only available in specific areas which is fine given how many options you have on what to use. In an area with few trees? Use bone. I could go on more about the depth of systems like animal breeding but I think you get the picture.

With Wurm resource types aren't nearly as detailed (though they are still important) but what it lacks in that area it makes up for in the fact you can be a full time crafter. Not a harvester + crafter but a pure crafter. The improvement system makes crafting a long drawn out process that is WAY more complex than the standard get the materials and execute the recipe system. I actually spent about a week working on a set of 5 items once. Unlike most games the final products were worth many times as much as the resources I put into making them.

As far as I'm aware PFO is never planning to approach that level of detail. Ever. It's really kind of incompatible with the systems they've already established.

What Ryan has done better than any other MMO Company on the market is describe a game that is remarkably appealing to me...

Heh, couldn't resist coming back to comment on this when I was told about it.

Ryan described a masterpiece. The game outlined in the blogs is better than anything currently on the market by far, even if it does have some issues that would need to be worked out.

But I could sit down and desribe a game that I would far rather play than the one outlined in this blog. I just don't have the tools, talents, and resources to deliver it.

Unfortunately it's the same case for Ryan. He can deliver you a game but I highly doubt it will ever reflect the quality and complexity detailed in the blogs. That's why I decided it simply was not worthwhile to wait around while another title promised the sky and delivered the midden heap like most of the other sandboxes that lack the resources to succeed.

This isn't the first game I've tested during development and the quality reflected is extremely poor even when weighed against other alphas. I find that a more meaningful measure of PFO's quality than outdated promises.

All accounts sold. When the responce from a development team to name one single selling point of their game is to lock the thread, you know a game is in trouble.

So glad to be free of this piece of trash. Good luck to my friends in this community, and good riddance to the clueless fanboys who helped run this title into the ground.

You can feel free to ban be now Chris. I know you've been wanting to and I won't be coming back.

I believe that that Ryan had me in mind when he wrote that snippet about "Those who focus on the negative."

I've responded with the legitimate question of "What do you feel the positive is?" and given him and the other proponents of the game a chance to defend that position and even help define for eachother what selling points you should be focusing on when marketing PFO outside this community.

I read that you didn't read my response. I don't care. You responded with fanboy rage when given a chance to defend something you apparently love. If you are feeling so blindly defensive of this title you lashed out before even reading then that is your problem. Not mine.

Decius has responded with a predictable. "Give them more time."

I agree they have not been given enough time to produce a truly quality game overall but I certainly believe at this point that someone should be able to point out a singular feature to me which PFO has really excelled at.

My concern isn't that this game lacks quality in some areas. It's that it lacks quality in every area.

I found this line quite interesting in one of the lastest blogs:

"We committed to our community to provide as much information about what we're doing, why, when, and how as we can. We accept that the downside for that level of transparency is that we become vulnerable to those who focus on the negative."

To me this raised a singular question: What is the positive we are supposed to be focusing on?

Back in the day I actually created a post pitching Pathfinder onlines features, that was edited and posted by GW on the front page of their 2nd Kickstarer.

So what has changed between then and now? Back then PFO had nothing but promises, now they have a game. Back then I saw their competitors as old school sandboxes like Darkfall, Mortal and Wurm. Now they are up against serious sandbox developers, some which have AAA budgets.

So lets delve into that question a bit more.

What is the Positive?

I'm no stranger to sub par games. I've chosen to primarily focus my attention on games that push the envelope and bring something new/great to the MMO scene. Unfortunately with the bulk of the resources in the MMO industry going into remaking WoW with some tiny variations over, and over, and over. That's meant that the majority of my time has been spent playing small indy MMOs.

I have a lot of negative things to say about these MMOs, and those who are familiar with me have heard me say them. However I also have a lot of positive things to say about them and I'm sure those familiar with me have also heard me applaud things such as Mortal Online's breeding and item property systems, Darkfall's exploration/treasure map systems, Wurm Online's improvement system etc.

So why is it that I have NOTHING positive to say about Pathfinder Online at this point? Pathfinder Online has made positive promises. Some of the systems they have said they will put in-game sound cool.

However there is not a single feature in this game I can point to and say. "That is done extremely well. That really pushes the envelope of MMO innovation."

And unfortunately that's the factor common in all MMO's I would even bother to rate as mediocre. Some feature done so well that it keeps me excited about logging in, and coming back to see what other areas that MMO has advanced in periodically.

Why is That a Problem? This is Just an Alpha.

Pathfinder Online was pitched to us as a game that would release early but still be fun by focusing on it's minimum viable product.

They said that they could achieve this by making human interaction, driven primarily by competition between player factions as the focal point of their game.

This made a lot of sense to me. As an old Freelancer vet I would rate every single feature of Freelancer as sub-par except the combat system and capacity for meaningful human interaction. They released a game with a bare bones economy, a freaking amazing combat system, a bit of space to explore and absolutely no rules. I loved it so much I played it consistently for 5 years straight.

Pathfinder Online however, launched with a shackled highly restricted PvP environment and few ways to really engage in it. When they did release something, not only was the release of it buggy and botched, but it was still so heavily restricted it boiled down to Arena PvP edited into an Open World Format. With that they have:

Terrible Combat Mechanics
Sub Par Graphics
Sub Par Character Creation
Sub Par Crafting
Sub Par PvE
Sub Par Trade
Sub Par Exploration
Non-Existent Settlement Building

I won't even talk about the stability because before I even care about that, you need to give me a reason to log in.

What They Should Have Done

PFO really violated their promise to give us a fun product quickly by focusing their efforts on player interaction. People have defended this by saying "EE will belong to the builders!" To that my question is: Then why isn't settlement building in yet, and why does crafting suck?

The fact is there is no single feature of PFO that is done well at this point. If there were any singular feature does so well, that was so fun that it would keep me logging in to this game, then I wouldn't be selling my accounts, even if every other aspect of this game was total trash.

Every competitor has given something to me in this arena.

Star Citizen has:

Amazing Graphics
Freaking Awesome Racing

And it's dogfighting isn't too shabby at this point.

Life is Feudal has:

The best non-block terraforming system I have ever seen.
Crafting fun enough to be engaging.

ArcheAge Has:

Amazing Graphics
Great Character Appearance Customization
Well Done Custom Classes
Engaging Fast/Paced Combat
An Exciting Variety of Mounts and Vehicles that Can Actually be Used in Combat
A Cool Piracy/Trade System

My Question to The Defenders of Pathfinder Online and Mr. Ryan Dancey

If you want us to focus on the positive I would like to know. What do you see the positive as? I'm asking for something better than "at some point down the road..." or "we really listen to the community."

What features that are currently in your game do you believe you have done an extremely good job on? Is there any feature that can be found in the current iteration of PFO that can't be found done as well anywhere else? What features do you think "those who focus on the positive" and the defenders of PFO should be selling to people?

And if there is nothing like that right now, what feature do you intend to get developed to a "selling point" status soonest, and what's your ETA on that?

Gear loss by gatherers isn't really what drives these kind of economies. War is what drives them. In a gear loss game war is quickly going to evolve into two types of engagements:

1. Destruction based skirmishes. Whoever inflicts more gear loss on the other party wins. This will be a constant ongoing 24/7 thing in which aggressors gear up in cheap to moderate value gear and go terrorize the opposing faction. The EVE equivalents are roaming gangs and gate camps.

2. Objective based battles. Fights over points of interest, settlements, etc. People are generally going to gear up in their highest grade equipment for these kind of engagements which means a lot of lost gear in a very short period of time. In EVE these are the kinds of engagement where you hear that if you converted the value of the ships lost to PLEX there was like 10k$ that got blown up, though I don't expect PFO will ever be able to have battles on that kind of scale.

The point of the first is widdle down both the economy and the morale of the opposing side so they can't field as much during the 2nd. Basically if you break the morale of your enemy causing many of their players to quit the game, their economy to crash, and their faction to even possibly disband, then you have eliminated them as a threat and their lands are now available to you.

The Competition

Star Citizen Overview Trailer
Star Citizen Persistent Universe
Star Citizen FPS Demo
Life is Feudal Promo
Black Desert Features
Archeage Features

I've also heard positive things about Gloria Victus, Everquest Next, The Repopulation, and Camelot Unchained.

PFO is up against a tide of promising sandboxes and sandparks. It itself feels dated with features and gameplay as uninspired as its graphics. It would have a hard time succeeding at the point even with a great captain at the helm. An ex-marketing guy with no MMO development experience has proven not to be a great captain.

While a decent idea in 2011 the time for PFO to shine is past.

This game is dead on arrival.

Since it looks like most people who post here regularly are disregarding the rules I'm going to go ahead and post a follow up.

I know with the videos I posted the first thing that's going to pop out to everyone is the graphics. They are all better with 3 of them being substantially better.

A lot of people are quick to dismiss graphics and I would agree that in general gameplay features are more important than graphics. However I will say having tried these games (with the exception of Black Desert) that the graphics are actually a pretty big deal.

For instance in Star Citizen I do not believe the racing would be nearly as enjoyable without how great the graphics are. You almost feel like you really are flying the ship at those kind of breakneck speeds.

Or in Archeage, their characters are so beautifully detailed I was actually able to make my avatar look a lot like me by going line by line and through my facial details and having Amora help. It looks enough like me that I'm still kind of stunned every time I take a look at it. That's a pretty cool thing to be able to have your own real face or something darn close to it anyway displayed on your digital avatar.

With both Archage and Star Citizen I'm really blown away with the quality of the game. They are realizing things I always wanted in games and never thought practical. Star Citizen is quickly becoming what I always wanted Freelancer (my favorite game ever) to be, and ArcheAge strikes me as just an incredibly well designed game that combines the best elements of ThemeParks and Sandboxes in really exciting ways, and has probably the best subscription model I've ever seen. I feel like it may actually have the potential to overtake WoW eventually. It reminds me a lot of the fictional Sword Art Online and that's a really good things.

If I can thank Pathfinder Online for one thing it's keeping my attention off these other titles long enough that I'm stunned at the quality of games already on the market, and then being bad enough to not keep me wasting time on it. I would have truly missed out if PFO had succeeded at being mediocre enough to keep my interest.

At this point I just can't wait until my last accounts sell so I can be done with this title for good.

Andius the Afflicted wrote:

It's the resources you are gathering that the bandits are after anyway. You can solve the issue of "gathering in the nude" but concerns about "gathering in the nude" are not a legitimate basis for opposition to banditry. It only makes it easier for them to get at their true objective.

And that added what, to the thread? Was it an approval or do you deject my idea?

Or was it just a general fart in the general direction of .... Something?

I'm saying you're proposing a solution to a non-issue and whoever raised the concern about nude gathering is complaining about nothing.

As is there are two meaningful choices.

Option A: Gather in the nude. Risk no gear but make yourself an easy target for anyone who wants to steal your resources.

Option B: Gear for combat. Risk the loss of gear but give yourself a better chance to defend what you've gathered.

Or any combination of those two (Partially gearing to lower risk while giving yourself some chance of fighting back.)

Also I believe it was announced that at some point they'll be adding gear that gives bonuses valuable to gatherers. I know carry capacity gear is already confirmed and wouldn't be surprised to hear about additional bonuses like how many resources you can extract from a node etc.

That will eventually give.

Option C: Gear for gathering. Put yourself at higher risk than option A and higher vulnerability than option B in order to carry more/gather more/gather faster etc.

All meaningful choices. All pretty balanced if they get gear costs and the bonuses from gathering gear right. There is just no reason to penalize nude gatherers.

A single server is overrated. The larger a server gets the less you know the community. One of my major gripes about EVE politics is it felt completely non-personal. I didn't even know the leader of my alliance, much less anyone from the opposing factions.

10,000 people is really as big of a community as I would find desireable to play in. It's also a number of players PFO is not likely to ever have online at once.

In smaller servers there is still histories and large wars. You're just much more likely to personally know the people who play the major parts in them.

The Competition

Star Citizen Overview Trailer
Star Citizen Persistent Universe
Star Citizen FPS Demo
Life is Feudal Promo
Black Desert Features
Archeage Features

I've also heard positive things about Gloria Victus, Everquest Next, The Repopulation, and Camelot Unchained.

PFO is up against a tide of promising sandboxes and sandparks. It itself feels dated with features and gameplay as uninspired as its graphics. It would have a hard time succeeding at the point even with a great captain at the helm. An ex-marketing guy with no MMO development experience has proven not to be a great captain.

While a decent idea in 2011 the time for PFO to shine is past.

This game is dead on arrival.

Something that was also said back in the day while trying to get our KSer money was that there is a limited timeframe in which to fill the market's desire for this kind of game. Basically that if this game wasn't released soon others would see the gap in the market and hop on it.

PFO really had me in tunnel vision for quite awhile. I remember when I heard about some of the titles I've gone back and reviewed more recently I ignored them even if they looked interesting, because I didn't want to lose focus on PFO.

Now with my dissapointment in PFO I've taken the time to review the market and realized something. The window for this game has already passed.

The market wasn't waiting for a good Golarion based sandbox, it was waiting for a good sandbox. Older sandboxes are improving. New ones are releasing exciting new features. PFO is way behind in a market that's rapidly advancing right on past it.

I think the people obsessing over PFO ever single day either aren't taking the time to look around and see that, and simply don't want to see that. I don't think any non-biased person could try all the sandboxes coming out right now, point to PFO and say "That's the most promising." Really no matter what feature package they are looking for. There is absolutely nothing about this game that stands out to me other than the amount of time and money I have invested in it. I can never get the time back but if I can get the money, I'll be satisfied to invest my future time and money into one of the titles I'm almost certain will succeed after trying their alphas.

Ignorance of other titles and devotion to yours leading you to pretend a product is much better than it really is, is the classic definition of fanboy. So I'm pretty comfortable dismissing anyone who believes PFO the most promising or even in the top few sandboxes coming out as a fanboy. As Audocet says, it's really actually not that large or a group of people. Just a very vocal group who congregate primarily on the PFO boards.

Only if all 4 accounts sell at the prices listed. That's why the last two are only purchasable together. Because if one of us plays both of us will play.

I didn't list them in the title because I don't expect them to sell at the listed price and I'm not willing to negotiate.

But if I can get the full 400$ back out I will given that apparently Lisa Stevens is going to take this game out back and put a bullet in it's head if it isn't successful enough.

I joined Aragon under the simple understanding that it's a place I could live and pursue my own individual in-game goals.

I declined status on the Council of Aragon because I have my own set of political aims that do not coincide 100% with those of the UnNamed Company or even Aragon and Katalphys as a whole. I did not want to play the role of someone who comes into the organization, not having helped build it, and infact having worked against it in the past, and expecting everyone to change to suit my interests.

I am basically a free agent living within the lands of Aragon working together with them where our aims coincide.

That's been the understanding between us for quite some time. Aragon is fully aware of my motives for joining and where my aims lie, and I am fully aware they are going to put the interests of those who have deeper loyalties to Aragon before mine.

Were I asked to part ways I would thank Aragon for taking me despite our history, and leave with considerably higher opinions of them than I did before getting to know them. They are a tight knit lot who while may play the role of badguys are loyal to their friends, and have eachother's backs. Were my aims to be a bandit I'd throw in my lot with them 100%.

But I haven't been asked to part ways yet, so for now I call Aragon home.

Bluddwolf wrote:

2. Role Balancing: I can honestly not think of anything a Rogue can do that Fighters, In particular, can not do better.

If your settlement goes wizard/rogue, a rogue can more fully and conveniently train than a fighter since the included skirmisher trainer doesn't train your basic fighter skills.

.......................................................................

Are you seriously using the argument that a class is easier to train if you don't have the other kind of class trainer as a justification that it's balanced?

Wow.... just wow....

Let's rephrase the question to: Other than the mistaken assumption Goblinworks have any clue of how to balance a class why would any settlement not already locked into rogue training facilities ever take them???

They're obviously sourcing regular D&D. Things work differently in Golarion. I'm now going to source some 100% accurate lore which I need not source because it's obviously the truth.

Of Elves, Ears, and Genitals

What many humans may not understand is that their male gentailia are a recent adaptation, which "male" elves do not share. When humans came into being they carried many adaptations that made them superior to the elven prototypes that came before them such as a more powerful frame, curves in females, and a distaste for the music of Justin Beiber.

Perhaps the most advantageous of these was the rediversion of their blood from their ears to between their legs allowing for the adaptation of their genitals. This did result in the loss of the signals for Lifetime TV and The Oprah channel that elven ears can pick up from any location but the chances of birds, planes, and superman crashing into their ears immediately saw a 1337% reduction.

Fortunately this ended up being a dominant trait, allowing male half elves to enjoy both their genitals and facial hair.

You will have to decide to wear heavy armor and forgo carrying a lot of inventory, or wearing lighter armor and carrying more inventory.

This is basically going to mean that heavy armor is the preferred armor type for PvPers looking to make kills and further objectives while lighter armor is good for PvEers and PvPers focused on getting loot.

If the only real penalty to wearing heavy armor is that I can't carry as much that doesn't mean a great deal to me when my objective is to disrupt the enemy or take/defend on objective. I was already planning to delete any loot I got while fighting if I wasn't headed straight back to base to deny my enemies the chance of recovering it.

So unless I won't be able to carry many consumables, and consumables are hugely important to my build, then I don't really care about this penalty.

Also as stated in another topic, balancing heavy armor with penalties means that either low grade light armor will be too powerful or high grade light armor will be too weak since the balance is the absence of a penalty and not something that scales up with the grade of the armor like the protection offered by heavy armor.

Here is a much better solution.

I think there are other issues that take priority over working animations but they are much more than visual fluff. Seeing and hearing your character execute their abilities is very important in timing your attacks. Thinking your ability failed to execute because nothing is happening can really throw off your game.

I would certainly prioritize it above say... throwing in another poorly implemented piece of non-MVP content like grenades.

A "sci-fi" version of WoW can't exist because WoW was a service, not a gaming, innovator.

If your intent is to produce EVE with a few unique gimmick features in a new setting then neither are you.

Your Pathfinder setting is going to hold you up any more than the Star Wars setting held up The Old Republic and SWG.

I'm telling you, I talked to upper leadership of a settlement outside the NC last night and they brought up the subject of how they are losing faith in this title and can't get people interested. They brought up how they've been looking at LiF if this game doesn't pan out.

These game needs to focus on it's core content and do it well before you start saying "EE has been released." You can't afford to ask people to pay for the product you're about to put out. There is a world of difference between a content light EE and a poorly functioning EE and nobody but your most diehard fanboys will forgive you the later.

The issue that's dooming PFO is of all the people in this community I've discussed the issue with outside these forums, they say that when they show people this game the vast majority are left completely unimpressed, and quit.

There isn't any single feature of PFO I can point to and say "That really sets this game apart" based on what is in game so far.

It's all promises of what is coming in the future of this game. I've played A LOT of games that make A LOT of grand promises concerning the content they will put in one day. Most either fail to deliver, or deliver long after everyone has already lost interest.

And every single one of those games has members in it's community willing to defend it tooth and nail and tell you why it's the best game ever made. This community is not unique. This game is barely unique. These ideas are barely unique.

If something doesn't change it's going to end up just like Darkfall/Mortal/Xsyon/Wurm. A tiny little die-hard community constantly looking over the horizon at what's promised while slogging through a game that delivers a few unique features in a package that's sub-par overall. A game always promising it's salvation is coming with the next expansion and that sees a steep decline in interest after the peak activity of the expansion has passed.

That's certainly not what I thought I was signing onto when GW was talking about what an experienced team they had and how good being linked with Paizo was for them.

You can say "You're expecting too much." But LiF is delivering a package that is fun to play and really set apart from it's competitors in a least one major area right now. And it's in alpha too.

I would respectfully ask people to stop responding to ragebois. It's completely unproductive, it encourages them, and the engagement serves their ends. Seriously, just let eyes skim over it--it's crap anyways.

I would respectfully ask people to stop responding to fanboys. It's completely unproductive, it encourages them, and all they do is drone back excuses and faulty logic. Seriously, just let eyes skim over it--it's crap anyways.

This leads to short term versus long term - we know that they will add encumbrance and that it will long term be better to have a mage with robes and not running around in heavy armor. You have your choice to go short term and use heavy armour now to get an advantage - but lose out when they change it - or you go long term and suffer now to be weaker.

What you are asking for is basically having it both - like having the cake and eat it.

Or, if you intend to play a heavy armor class longterm you get short term and longterm power. You get to have your cake and eat it.

I think the issue is this game is nowhere near the relatively bug free but content light beta we were promised.

I say go with option three and push back the release date until all four roles are working as intended.

I've noticed, discussed with many other players, and seen posted a few times on this boards reference to the disparity between heavy armor and all lighter armors. While offering significantly increased protection, they have little in the way of drawbacks now that they give no movement speed penalties.

Because of this I would like to put forward a suggestion about bringing the different armor classes in line with eachother.

The Basic Premise

Increased stamina is introduced as a benefit of armor. Basically as armor becomes higher and higher quality it offers more and more stamina regen based on a scale like this:

Clothing = Huge stam regen bonus, no protection bonus
Light Armor = Large stam regen bonus , small protection bonus
Medium Armor = Small stam regen bonus, large protection bonus
Heavy Armor = No stam regen bonus, huge protection bonus

Here's the idea behind it. If you balance heavy armor purely through heavy armor penalties then that means that the difference between lower quality light armor and clothing and high quality light armor and clothing is far less pronounced than the difference between low quality heavy armor and high quality heavy armor.

By using a stam regen bonus you can put all armor types on the exact same power curve, but they just give their bonuses to different things.

Balancing This Bonus

The obvious / instant effect you're going to see from this is lighter armor classes, especially well geared light armor classes, throwing off way more abilities way faster, while heavy armor classes are stuck with the same amount of stam regen.

This is largely just going to balance out heavy armor which is currently insanely OP but there are a couple things that should be considered because of this.

1. As the only current clothing class Wizards will be working with a huge amount of stamina. An unfortunate side-effect could be wizards just sitting back and spamming the hell out of high stam cost abilties while ignoring low stam cost ones. The way to prevent this is an across the board increase of the stam costs of all arcane abilities as well as a buff to their effects. This will need a bit of testing and tweaking as raising say the damage by the same amount as the stam cost may prove to be OP.

This may make arcane spells a poor choice for wearers of medium and heavy armor and not as strong for users of light armor. This can easily be offset if roles such as the Magus are introduced by decreasing the stam cost of arcane abilities by a certain % per keyword in their armor feat.

2. Ranged and divine attacks are not dealt with in point one but are primarily used by medium and light armor classes. So they may need a lesser tweak to their costs and effects. This does lower the effectiveness of heavy armor ranged characters and divine casters but you could give appropriate roles such as crusader a reduced cost to such effects like described in point one.

Then again nerfing the ability of the heavy armor crusader to heal themselves as effectively as the evangelist and healer roles might not be such a bad thing.

3. Melee is used by both heavy armor and light armor classes. And currently the light armor classes wielding it are thee most underpowered roles in the game. I say keep it the way it is, anyone crazy enough to fight on the front lines in light armor deserves that kind or raw power. I would even increased the speed at which those classes can use melee attacks to enhance their ability to burn through all that stam.

Stam Regen to Protection Bonus Defensive Abilties

But what about monks? High AC rangers and rogues? Not all classes that wear lighter armor are glass cannons. Some of them can actually be quite defensive.

Correct! I'm glad you mentioned that!

So how could one create such a character in PFO? They could do it with the introduction of stam regen to protection bonus defensive abilities.

Basically these are defensive abilities which, along with the usual effect one would expect from a defensive ability have the effect "Trade 30% of your armor based stam regen for protection. You get X points of protection per stam regen lost."

Why 30? Because why would anyone play a heavy armor class if you could slot abilities that gave you 100% of their defense on any other character? 30% totals up to 90% if you use one of these abilities in every slot meaning while you can go very defensive with a light armor role heavy armor roles are still the kings of AC.

So you can go the glass cannon rogue who dies from a stiff breeze but hurls out insane damage. But you could also slot 1-3 of these abilities if you want to trade some of that raw power for survivability.

A Final Note on Heavy Armor

So as stated above heavy armor roles would still have the absolute most defense. The counter balance to that is armor check penalties. In the tabletop certain abilities such a stealth, fly, swim etc. are penalized while wearing armor. Those same abilities need to be penalized in PFO as they are implemented.

TL:DR

Make lighter armors give increased stam regen on the same curve as heavy armor gives increased protection. Put in defensive abilities that let them trade this for protection (at about 90% of the effectiveness as if they had just opted for heavier armor.) Adjust the cost and effective of arcane, ranged, and divine skills to make sure classes using them still need to manage their stam.

Possibly, but it does feel like they are re-inventing the wheel. I don't think I have played an MMO without auto-follow and target of target (although it might have been done by a script on a hotkey in at least one of them).

For sure. I think making all healing abilities melee range was a poor design choice for an MMO even if that's how the TT works but if they are going to run with that then they need to nerf focus fire a bit from the standard format.

The concept is good as you can tell. But the implementation is obviously combat only. Again the animation is good concerning running on all fours more as a wolf-hybrid BEAST. I prefer this visual representation and slant towards more "inner beast" and less humanoid-form that is seen in the picture at mmorpg.com. The behavior needs to then match it.

In Pathfinder a werewolf in hybrid form looks extremely bestial but it is interesting to note some do wield weapons like a human.

I feel like there should be more than one path to take as a werewolf, and reasons for characters of every class to consider it.

One of those paths should be people who lose themselves entirely to the beast within, give up their armor, weapons etc. and go fully feral werewolf trading their last shreds of humanity while in hybrid form to pure bestial power. Doing that should have effects even on their human form both negative and positive.

When the feud system is implemented the cost of feuding a group scales based on it's size. The larger the group the cheaper to feud, the smaller the more expensive.

Right now the large groups can recruit as many players as they want with no standards of acceptance and no need to protect them. Afterall, at this point there is more park than sand to this sandpark.

Such policies mean many targets and they'll be poorly protected. A lot of PvP oriented groups either already have or will be setting their sights on TEO and TSV. Really. Think of what a huge % of the game's population you could turn into targets by feuding those two settlements. They are in a small area that they will have to spread out over to avoid exhausting the resources, meaning they have to spread their proportionally small military thin to keep it protected.

Hunting in the "safe" area of Brighthaven with TEO and TSV feuded is the surest way to enjoy plentiful consequence free kills for a low influence cost.

I wouldn't worry about it. Numbers aren't everything and war has not yet come to the River Kingdoms.

These are long term fixes but here is how you fix this issue entirely.

1. Parties, Companies, and Settlements can have friendly fire enabled or disabled. If joining a party/group with it disabled you get a pop-up warning. You are also notified and given a brief timeframe to leave before it takes effect if it changes once you are in a group.

Most of these style of games already have party/alliance kills disable any negative consequences for this very reason. I realize Ryan sees it the opposite way, and I've been warning him all along sooooo...

The first of many...

I TOLD YOU SO!!!

Cut the system out entirely and let us try self policing if that system isn't ready but right now the cure is more damaging than the disease.

It's not a UNC saying that. ;)

2. Friendly and Hostile tagging system. Players should have the ability to set up settings that allow them to mark targets as friendly and hostile. Here is how I would set mine:

[H]Aggressive NPCs
[F]Non-Aggresive NPCs
[F]Party Members
[F]Company Members
[F]Settlement Members
[F]Allied Companies
[F]Allied Settlements
[F]Neutral Players
[H]Red Players
[H]Targets with Aggression Timers
[H]Feud Targets

Friendly targets would only be target-able with beneficial effects. Hostile targets would only be target-able with aggressive effects.

Additionally you throw in basically a safety switch. For instance if I press the "]" key I manually set a target to friendly while the "\" key manually sets them to hostile. Regardless of any auto-flagging settings.

The other nice part is because I have targets with aggression timers on auto-hostile I can respond if someone starts hitting me.

Finally you could set some flags to take precedence over others. For instance the friendly status of "Settlement Member" may outweigh the hostile property of "Red Players." Or the other way around, depending on what settings you want to go with.

3. A rep safety needs to be in place. In Wurm you can toggle two tabs called "lawful" and "faithful". While "lawful" is on you cannot take any action which is against the law. The game blocks you from doing it. While "faithful" is on you cannot take any action that would offend your deity. Disable them, and you can do whatever you want.

They worked extremely well.

PFO needs a similar safety that stops anyone from taking an action that harms their rep unless they turn it off.

I feel like the selling point of MVP is if you believe this game will become a big enough deal that the extra time to advance your character is worth the time and money.

I feel like the biggest mistake Goblinworks is making is in believing a half baked MMO is MVP.

I realize it's too late to go back and do this now but they should have gone the route of Star Citizen or Life is Feudal and released something smaller first then build toward an MMO.

Their "Pit Fighter" program that they canceled probably should have been their feature product for the first year or two. Focus on creating a really great combat system and giving various PvE and PvP arenas to test it in. Implement all the core classes and races, real character customization. Once you have a really great combat system with all the core classes then you build and launch an MMO with territorial control, feuds, and siege warfare all in place.

That's where LiF has pulled so far ahead of PFO. They kept their ambitions reasonable and it allowed them to deliver a product that didn't feel soulless and is actually fun to play. Plus you wouldn't have the issue of players who want to play monks and druids having to save most of their XP or end up severely behind. That's always rubbed me very wrong.

@Takasi. I'm not talking about players who already have bought in buying more stuff. Pathfinder Online is a fairly small title at this point. Most people you talk to outside this community know little to nothing about it. Over the past year+ word of mouth from the players who bought in during the 2nd Kickstarter should have grown the community.

If it had grown by the rate it decreased players willing to pay 100$+ for day one access AND a set of unique items that will never be available again AND a free alt that doubles the XP they pay for should have gone up, not down.

Slow/consistent growth is not what you have when anticipation seems to has fallen over the past year.

It seems like less players feel it is a strong enough title to justify that investment than the number of players who have decided other titles are strong enough to justify selling those perks for a bit less than they paid for them. End result, supply is higher than demand, and prices fall even though no new DT accounts have entered the market or ever will again.

Part of the reason I paid such a high amount into both the SC and PFO Kickstarter is because with any successful game any item that is on the market for a short time and then stops being sold will increase greatly in value over time. A great example of this is the original holiday item in Runescape which were worth nothing when they made it into the game and would probably be worth hundreds or thousands of real life dollars now. I wasn't really buying to sell but buying because I knew it was worth my money. With SC this has proven universally true on every limited time item I bought. All of them saw a moderate to substantial price increase. With PFO they've all fallen in value.

So basically Decius, what you are saying is the availability of accounts purchased during the first Kickstarter which people have come to regret exceeds the number of new players who are seriously excited for this title but missed the first Kickstarter over a year ago.

That we've lost more serious players than we've gained in that time.

This isn't raising any red flags to you?

I swear you and Nihimon will be in the middle of defending every decision GW has ever made when the server shuts down for good.

The new TEO is The Magistry and I will not attempt to surplant a leader as deserving as Athansor even if I believed I could.

I'm not trying to sink the game. Think of this thread as like in Mario Kart when you have the little guy floating infront of you with the "Wrong Way" sign. He's not trying to cause you to lose the race. He's trying to get you back on track.

The offer to let someone buy my accounts is mainly to illustrate a point but also serious. They are seriously overpriced if being sold at cost. I don't expect takers but if I get some they're paying more than they are worth so I'll sell.

I don't see games as an investment but I'd like people to stop about how much two accounts training at the speed of one would be worth in any semi-successful MMO.

How is it not scary to the fans of this game that something that sold over 3600 copies at 100$ over a year ago is now worth only 80$ with less than a month to release?

Let's pretend Goblinworks stopped development today. Let's say, hypothetically, that my subscription along with those of a few other fanatical Pathfinder fans could pay for the server maintenance required to keep the game running. Please tell me why you or anyone else who does not like the game should be so 'worried' about growing the user base at all, let alone take in all the Life is Feudal, wow, Destiny, Farmville, Michael Bay or whatever other 'competitive entertainment dollars' are out there?

Me personally? Because I invested 600$+ from this game because I was promised a hardcore PvP title and I am not comfortable with GW running that title into the ground to appease the feelings of a carebear community that everyone's voice should be given equal consideration.

If GW wants to do that I'll be perfectly willing to let them without complaint if they'll refund me the full cost of all the accounts I currently own. Or hell, anyone in this community. If you buy my accounts at cost I'll leave. I'll use the money to help buy Amora a better machine and a copy of LiF and have a lot more fun than we would here.

Until then I'm going to stick around and advocate against policies and decisions the depreciate the value of my investment.

Not likely to happen because those accounts aren't worth what I paid for them anymore.

We sure will miss you.

No such luck. I DO have 600$ invested in this game and I'll be keeping at least two of those accounts active until TEO/TSV cease to exist or this game shuts down. Whichever comes fist.

However I am not representative of the players this title will have to win over who haven't already invested hundreds of dollars into and made deep rivalries within the community.

Those kind of players have no reason to tolerate a sub par product, and from what I'm seeing, most of them aren't. And as much as I'm sure the fanboys would like to "good riddance" them all too, you can't succeed without them.

Another point I'd like to add. Currently I cannot sell off any of those accounts at cost. The sellers market for PFO accounts is pretty dry unless you are willing to mark your accounts down in value.

In Star Citizen I purchased a few ships in the KS that I sold for huge profits earlier this year. One I actually sold for over double it's original price and made hundreds of dollars off of.

That should be an indication of the relative health of these games to anyone who really wants to be honest.

Saiph wrote:

It's really just sad to see so many members of the community reacting so negatively this early into the game, and we wonder why big companies have NDAs. :-(

What happened to wanting this game to succeed? Instead you're trying to kill it before it's even born; you are your own worst enemy.

Part of the answer is the responses we have received from potential players. Dozens of offers of alpha invites left unused or outright rejected.

Same results here. I have failed to get anyone interested in this game who was not already here on these forums since the release of alpha.

I remember when Amora watched me play her comments were about how slow and lame the combat looked. And this was before I had voiced any complaints about PFO to her.

I invested in PFO for two reasons.

1. Every Open World PvP Sandbox on the market at the time of PFO's announcement (Minus EVE which had unbearably boring combat) was being produced by amateur developers. They all had good ideas and were working toward things that would make them great.

However the pacing was terrible. These tiny underfunded companies simply could not advance at a reasonable pace, and it felt like I was just sitting there waiting literal years for them to get there game to a point it was playable. The huge grind issues in Darkfall, the ridiculous racial imbalance issues in Mortal (might as well not play if you don't plan to play an elf or half-orc). etc. I had major concerns I had raised 2-3 years before that still had not been addressed. It was ridiculous.

Pathfinder Online sold me because they had experienced developers and the backing of a major company (Paizo). I figured "surely here is a company that can produce a quality product in a reasonable timeframe."

2. Pathfinder Online sold me because they made me believe they would create a system that would allow for massive amounts of meaningful PvP while screening out a lot of crap that would drive newbs from the community. All of these types of games I've played before had a veteran population mainly comprised of RPKers.

Here is my issues now:

On point one PFO isn't alone anymore. There are lots of promising sandbox projects coming out. Star Citizen, Life is Feudal, Project Legion etc. And some of the older titles such as Darkfall and Mortal have made great leaps forward in the time I've been waiting on PFO. I don't care who has the smallest budget as much as I care about who is producing the best product and I feel like PFO is falling behind the competition.

My concerns are compounded by several factors.

1. I feel like these forums have a huge population of fanboys stroking GW's egos and making it seem like they can do no wrong. What we need to be doing is lighting a fire under their ass and criticizing the problems with this game so that they will get addressed. This game is behind where it should be after several months of alpha. Criticizing GW doesn't mean you don't care about this project. It means you want to see them address their failures and those failures definitely exist.

2. I've noticed a tendency from GW to reinvent the wheel. They are building their forums from scratch. A tab targeted combat system from scratch. Everything from scratch. The result is a crappy forum, a crappy combat system, a crappy everything. You are building in UNITY. You cannot tell me unity possess no assets you could just purchase to give yourself a functional vanilla theme-park combat system and modify it from there. Or auction house system for that matter. And I KNOW you could have done fine with pre-packaged forums. Sure it's not innovative but at least it would work! I'd like to see GW stop wasting so much time trying to be innovators in every aspect of the game and give us a function product ASAP THEN innovate with it. I would be perfectly content with WoW style combat, WoW style auction houses etc. + a functional feud and reputation system as the MVP for EE. It would be better than what we have now.

3. I feel like the two greatest assets we have on the GW team for developing this kind of game would be Lee Hammock (Fallen Earth) and Tork Shaw (Darkfall). The main representation we are seeing from GW is not someone who actually worked on EVE, but their PR/marketing guy. Maybe the developers are 100% on board with how this project is being run but we don't know that. I really feel like some more input from the actual developers who are creating the actual game might be very enlightening to this community who at the moment seem to have more Ryan fanboys than people who even know the names of the guys actually building this game.

4. This game's community has proven consistently to have little to no experience in these kinds of games as a whole. Yet the main crowdforging tool is one that simply gauges what % of the community supports our feedback. If that was a system that works in giving people high quality products then we would be producing high quality candidates for our executive an legislative branches in the US and we all know how that's going. The crowdforging process is a folly, and if we continue to rely on so heavily on ideascale this title will crash and burn.

5. Most of the new sandboxes coming out now have their own systems addressing random ganking. The current reputation shows little thought into how to address the issue. I give it 1 star. The fanboys of the community seems completely satisfied with it and GW has made no indication they intend to address it. At this point Mortal Online already has a better system and LiF and Star Citizen are both shaping up to have one.

Currently I own:

175$ Buddy Package W/DT+ All Daily Deals + Add Ons
300$ Brewmaster Package W/DT + Add Ons
155$ Account W/DT + All Daily Deals (I know that's what I paid the previous owner for it and I just paid them the cost of the account and add ons.)

So I have over 600$ in assets in this game. Thats not counting my investments into TEO's tavern or the accounts I bought during the first kickstarter and have sold since then.

I invested A LOT in this game and really want to see it succeed. But I'm losing faith that it will. At this point if I could get my money back and walk I think I would because I have serious concerns about whether this game will ever make it to OE or not and I don't really want to invest 600+$ +60$ a month into a title that will just be shut down in a couple years or never amount to anything more than DF and Mortal while there are numerous more promising titles that seem to actually be delivering an amazing product.

Andius the Afflicted wrote:

Who consumes a title like that? People with a competitive spirit. Not people here to treat the game like a social club but people who are here for what I call an "empire simulator."

Why do you think empire building appeals mainly to competitive people?

Lots of people who enjoy "sim-city" style solo games...

Because in a Sim City style solo game nobody is going to come torch your city or take it over. It doesn't matter if someone builds something bigger or better as long as you are satisfied with what you have built.

In this kind of game it absolutely does. In this game people will raid you, they will kill your members, and if you can't mount a strong defense they will take over your lands.

That doesn't happen in Sim City.

Once again, as we hear every day, people with a cooperative spirit also have been and are enjoying PFO.

A PFO with:

1. No feud system.
2. No territorial control.
3. No SADs.
4. An incredibly small PvPer population.

At this point we have nothing more than a contentless theme-park:

"Sucks" is an opinion-based word, so it can apply fairly enough to you, but you can't apply it to others, as they have their own standards. The voices we hear here every day tell us not all people are finding things particularly sucky.

PvE- You kill escalations which without territorial control really have no meaning. Escalations are fought back with typical grind style quests. The AI is so bad the players had to be nerfed (band-aid ranged fix) for it to provide any challenge at all.

PvP- No meaningful consequence for losing or gain for winning. Even if both parties consent there is no way to engage in it without massive consequence. The combat system is choppy and poorly animated. Incredibly important abilities such as charge barely function at all.

Crafting- You get items and stick them in a building that does all the work for you. It requires no effort, no experimentation and while certain items have different "qualities" the QL system just allows you to execute different QL recipes. It's no more complex than any theme-park.

To be blunt, I don't see how anything in game is currently better than WoW, and without the competitive PvP driven aspect that has yet to emerge I don't see how it ever will be. You're entitled to your opinions but for the sake of the audience could you enlighten us on why you feel this content could be described as anything but sub-par?

And I'd like to add many of these people giving feedback wouldn't criticize GW no matter what they delivered. From the people outside this community I've shown the PFO alpha the reviews have been universally negative and I actually got a PM from an ex-TSV yesterday completely disillusioned with this product and the crowdforging process informing me they won't be playing this game.

Oh and you might find this part of their PM interesting...

Nihimon, Being & Jazz are perfect examples, they just adapt their opinions To the dev's...

PS. A question for anyone from TEO. You belong to a very large gaming community called CotP. Hundreds or even thousands or players belong to it. At this point just how many CotP who didn't join through TEO have tried PFO and decided to stay?

All that said the reputation system doesn't need to be removed. It needs to be fixed and the promised alternatives to losing reputation such as feuds, faction warfare, and SADs need to be delivered upon ASAP.

I of course completely agree with KC's point the people currently inhabiting the forums are not representative of the audience PFO will have to bring in if it is to be successful.

At the moment every major type of content sucks. The PvE sucks, the PvP sucks, even the crafting sucks. I can name numerous titles that do all three things better. I can even name numerous games that do all 3 better than EVE.

So what's the draw? How do you sell this game? This is a "leave your mark on the world" game. The primary story drivers aren't the Horde and Alliance, they are Aragon, Talonguard, Golgotha, etc. Real factions run by real players. All your actions be they crafting, PvEing or PvPing make a mark on that world. That's the main selling point of PFO.

Who consumes a title like that? People with a competitive spirit. Not people here to treat the game like a social club but people who are here for what I call an "empire simulator." I remember seeing a poll of EVE's players a long time ago asking what kinds of content they did the most and which kind they wanted to do the most. The results showed the largest amount of content consumed was PvE content particularly mission and ratting. But what did players want to be doing. I believe it was about 90% of the population that wanted to be PvPing. Fairly sure that was across all players living in all security level spaces.

These games attract competitive players, and competitive players like to PvP. That's the reason they choose a title like this where they can make a mark in the world over games with well designed PvE systems and plenty of PvE content where their accomplishments ultimately mean nothing even to their precious "Alliance" and "Horde".

I realize about 90% of you disagree with me, but about 90% of you are one good hard reality check called the feud system from leaving this game.

Awhile back there was a topic comparing this game to Destiny. A triple AAA title with an insanely huge budget, which is fairly light on the innovation like any other triple A title.

While I'm sure it makes us all feel good to compare ourselves to games with such bloated budgets they are not our primary competition. Our real competition is games like Arch-Age, Black Dessert, and... Life is Feudal. Games, some of which had smaller budgets and started around the same time, that really push the envelope of innovation.

Life is Feudal just recently went into alpha and I decided to try it out. So I'd like to talk a bit about my first impressions of the LiF alpha vs. the PFO alpha.

What's Similar?

Both games are sandboxes. (Though as explained further on LiF is more of a true sandbox)
Both games have Open World PvP.
Both games have alignment systems with meaningful consequences. (Both of which are similarly useless at this point.)
Both games have loot drop in PvP. (LiF is full loot drop while PFO is partial.)
Both games have durability loss on items. (LiF is from use while PFO is from death.)

And most importantly...

Both games feature a player driven economy, territorial combat, and player interaction as the primary forms of content.

So with that said, what does PFO have going for it and what does LiF have going for it?

Things that Set LiF Apart from PFO

1. Graphics - It's really rather undebatable. LiF is a beautiful fairly modern looking game while at this point PFO's graphics look a bit dated.

2. Terraforming - It's one of the central features of the game and done EXTREMELY well. You can bring up a view showing the elevation of all the surrounding tiles, making terraforming so easy a child could figure it out. The small tile sizes in comparison to games such as Wurm also make it easier to really customize the landscape just how you want it. Best terraforming system I have ever seen in a game not built out of blocks.

3. Fast Paced Combat- LiF uses a full manual aim combat system that is more able to accommodate the fact internet speeds and the average computer are getting faster and faster while PFO's combat system already feels outdated. However their system may still be a bit more fast paced for the average internet speed and system still being used today once they reach the MMO phase.

Things that Set PFO apart from LiF

1. Fantasy Setting- LiF feels like playing an individual character from Age of Empires II (medieval setting but not fantasy) while PFO offers a fantasy setting complete with elves, dwarves, and magic.

2. Less Grinding- PFO offers time based XP gains with achievement grinds to unlock the skills you want to spend it on. LiF uses a usage based level raising system.

3. No Skill Cap- PFO allows you to train as many skills as you want on a single character while LiF has a skill and stat cap meaning you can only progress a single character so far.

LiF's Minimum Viable Product

Like PFO LiF is rolling out with a more gradual approach, however they have what I feel is a better approach to it. Rather than releasing a Minimum Viable Product MMO they have given players the ability to host their own 64 man servers. On those servers you have access to the finished terraforming system, the nearly finished crafting system, and the combat system which is a work in progress. This system will be updated with more content such as character customization as those kinds of things become available.

My first impression of LiF's MVP was that it was additively fun. All of the major content drivers of their game such as terraforming, PvP, and territorial control are in the game giving you a reason to want to log back in as soon as you have the time.

The content that they have put in functions fairly well, while there are some server stability issues I've found very few problems with the game's released content.

PFO's Minimium Viable Product

Rolling out from the start as an MMO seems to may have been a bit ambitious for an MVP product. The game is missing major content drivers (PvP? Territorial Control?), almost none of the features currently implemented feel even close to finished. As I've heard other community members say the game feels "souless" and I find I'm having to force myself to log in.

Overall Impression

I feel like it's fairly hard to argue that at this point LiF has the better product. I believe they are also working with a smaller budget and started a bit later. PFO has a lot more content but LiF's method of focusing on less aspects at a time until they are functioning perfectly than moving on to others give's their game a powerful first impression vs. PFO.

PFO may be able to gain the leg up within 2-5 years because their slow paced tab targeting system allows for a larger server but the concern for me is:

1. How many players will they lose in the meantime?
2. How far with LiF and PFO's other competition advance while we are still waiting for PFO to get the basics in and functioning well?
3. How many years before full aim combat is viable on a large scale?

Bottom line, is a simple message to GW. Your competition is out there, it's organized, and it actually looks pretty scary. If you want PFO to grow as large as EVE you need to give them very strong, very solid reasons to choose this title over titles like LiF, Arche Age and Black Desert.

I'd really like to see an "all of the above" approach taken to achievements. In other word a huge variety of achievements that can be earned in many different ways. One player can earn them by grinding a ton of peon monsters while anther gets it hunting a boss monster and another gets it PvPing.

But personally I do agree with Mbando. Give people other reasons to earn achievements. Keep them in the game but IMO all the arguments for the need to use them (or any other system) as a 2nd gate seem a bit hollow.