Andius the Afflicted's page

First, yeah the name and first post makes this questionable.

Second, on the issue of banning or even reporting said behavior, what EULA is being violated?

Who or what is Sensuo? Character name or company name?

Sensuo

Making Isk was never a grind, because you could make roughly the same amount doing nearly every activity you could think of.

I don't really agree with that. Someone who's good at manululating the market will probably generate money faster than even a very good bounty hunter / mercenary / pirate but if PvPing is what you want to be doing what does it matter who's making money faster?

Also the price of the ship rises drastically faster than the power level. When you consider that you probably get some of their equipment when they die and they lose all that value well... that's a stat disadvantage I'm much more happy to accept.

I generally intentionally gear my PVP builds down a bit unless there is some major objective being fought over because you don't want to lose too big if you get zerged or something. No matter how well geared you are and how good you get, everyone loses sometimes.

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.

Killing = Griefing to the greater community of PFO.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and ask is the reason you are killing people near starter towns an intent to "grief" newbs or are you simply looking for PVP targets and living near starter towns?

Quote:

Unlike PFO EVE literally has absolutely 0 grind.

False. You still need money to support your XP (can't fly a ship you can't buy), and all roads to money are a grind of one form or another (including buying PLEX - that is just an RL grind).

I'd like you to list as many forms of content in EVE as you can that do not have the potential to generate ISK if you're good at it.

Time based skill training aside (which as I previously stated generates no content) would there be anything stopping you if your friend joins the the game and you want to toss him some of your spare ships/equipment so you can go do the same conent together without him being gimped?

Skill training aside what permanant changes can you make to your character that will give you an advantage that causes people feel they need to grind to your level to not be at a stat based disadvantage?

The kind of grind that offends me is when I feel like I need to put off doing what I want to be doing in order to not be at some ridiculous stat disadvantage.

PFO and EVE remove the the grind (Well... partially for PFO) but then add back in this time based thing that will block you from enjoying the content you want to enjoy until you been playing for X ammount of time.

So the main point is why? Why is needed? Other than the opprotunity for no skill vets to beat up on newb's who might be able to beat them without their skill training what is the point of ANY skill progression?

I realize the answer to PFO is because leveling is integral to making it feel like Pathfinder but given I see no compelling case that leveling combat skills is neccasary for a good MMO what are the upsides to having PFOs leveling times be so damned long?

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.

Do you even understand the concept of this game? The point (supposedly) was player driven content. You don't need developer created content if you give players the tools for meaningful and engaging social interaction. I can promise you if well done that is an engaging model for a game. The game PFO tries so desperately to compete with us EVE. Unlike PFO EVE literally has absolutely 0 grind. All progression is time based. Last time I checked it's the most popular sandbox title on the market by a significant factor.

Now tell me what content does time based XP accumulation give? Almost none, that's its point. It allows you to engage in the content you WANT to be doing and not what you need to do in order to progress. Player interaction is the key, not leveling.

I would argue based on this that you could make an extremely compelling MMO where all differences in major combat stats are gear based and gear is continually being gained and lost making the constant flow of the economy and player driven action the only two sources of constantly evolving and highly compelling content.

In other words, a 0 barrier to entry game in terms of raw player stats. PFO will never adopt such an approach but for the moment I am talking in terms of how to make a great MMO and not how to fix PFO.

Anyway if you think the way to stop min-maxers is to increase progression time you're doing the exact opposite of what you want to be doing. But that's obviously over your head and I've said it all before so I won't repeat it at length. Anyway I wish you many RL friends who will decide not to play this game with you because they aren't interested waiting a year to be half as strong as the people they are fighting.

The issue with PFO is that it takes 2.5 years to max some of the aspects of a specific build. I believe my calculations determined that maxing all combat related skills relevant to a single build took 4.75 years, and it was later pointed out I forgot expendable training, and of course that's only going off the skills in the game at the point in alpha I last played.

That's all assuming of course you are 100% focused on this single combat build and choose not to take any skills for other builds you might play around with, and choose not to take any gathering skills whatsoever (which you really probably should on any adventurer character.)

It's also discounting the need for attributes to raise certain skills.

Basically what I'm getting at is while the power curve does excellerate fast at the beginning you're still looking at over 5 years dedicated training to max or over 10 realistically for most people. You've got to think about how long you want to have to play before you reach the point that most of the population is not leaps and bounds ahead of you.

Also stop to consider the vast majority of people currently playing have a free alt allowing them to streamline their playing. Chances are you won't.

I would say the upside is you don't have to grind, but truth is that's a lie and we all know it.

So if you really want to play this game buy a DT and play it now so you won't be hopelessly stuck behind the curve by the time you do want to.

The longer you wait, the higher the barrier to entry is going to get. Once this game is 5+ years old if you haven't started training yet I wouldn't even bother. If this game makes it that long.

I would LOL, but I can't tell if he is serious or not.

I decided if I incorporated a grain of truth into some of the conspiracy theories floating around about me on these forums it would make it more interesting. Obviously the truth based part was separating into multiple physical beings.

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.

Right. Sorry I usually play Rangers in the TT so I'm not as familiar with all the high level spells.

@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 would also consider using the game as an investment, if you can afford it, keep the xp flowing. When you come back spend a little bit, see if the game is to your liking. If you ever decide the game is definitely not for you, you have a account that is potentially worth thousands of dollars to sell.

This is REALLY, REALLY bad advice. The value of an account such as this is going to go up based on the demand for older accounts. Given it isn't even month 2 yet and they have already opened up the floodgates for every EE backer when their original plan was to realease EE in stages to hundreds or thousands of eagerly awaiting backers each month it's evident this game's popularity is lower than was anticipated. The fairly static price of DT packages at around ~100$ when they are a limited availability thibg is also an indication of poor health.

I can almost promise you if you invest 15$ a month you will not get 15$ a month back out for each month you do so if you decide to sell later.

Despite some efforts to control grey market trading and the fact that after many people (including myself) made thousands on Star Citizen ships everyone and their dog got in on it... SC ships are still a fairly safe investment with almost Gauranteed profits if you get a tradable version (purchased from RSI with real currency) with Lifetime Insurance and sit on it awhile.

Honestly though if you want to make money on gaming you need to find a fresh title you are fairly certain will be highly popular and buy up tradeable limited edition items and packages through their Kickstarter. And most bests just aren't as sure as I knew Star Citizen would be.

Andius the Afflicted wrote:

The mere fact you need a deal with Pax to not have them slaughter your members prooves my point. It's a legitimate strategy but not the kind of allies I wanted for the group I had built.

With the matter of KoTC aside, there has been pvp between multiple parties. I don't understand why you would think anyone would abide by total non aggression between parties with a strained history, where there is no offer of benefit, and no reasonable expectation of reciprocation.

People planned to attack the empire when you were a leader, there was no indication that the stance was ready to change after the supposed fall. To assume a stance of pure non aggression in such a circumstance would be suicide.

What we did instead is agree to the NAP provided. What is being done by empire settlements now is abiding by the contract we did sign and offer reparations if there is a violation.

Sure, the empire might not be this nebulous idea of social justice. That said we abide by the contracts we do sign.

Again, offer no proofs. Claim victory. Rinse. Repeat.

TEO's primary founding purpose was to protect individuals and small groups that couldn't protect themself. Pax has demonstrated its more than willing to trample anyone who hasn't joined their empire if it's within their benefit to do so.

I don't see any issue with your style of play but surely you are smart enough to see the two are mutually incompatible, as well as that I would have been foolish not to cash into the "they will kill you if they see a benefit in doing so, we require an actual provocation" factor in the propoganda war.

For the record I had plans to destroy UNC. That plan only included war with Pax if they defended UNC. If not then it was a "play it by ear" relationship that I personally believed would end in you creating a circumstance which required us to go to war with you. I can tell you based on the access I had to the TEO private boards (and still do have of I really cared enough to look) that they wanted to use me leaving as a chance to foster positive relations with Pax. Their enmity toward you left with me, though I'm sure they realize by now that peace between Pax and the EA is a pipedream.

@Dox

Not sure if that's sarcasm or not but I actually do spend a considerable amount of time in most games protecting and mentoring newbs. I'm a pretty nice guy until you give me a reason not to be. Then I'm a total a&*+%*#.

I think what my former allies who once loved and respected me fail to see is the way I treat them now is the exact way I treated UNC and Pax. Infact there was one point I blew up at Areks on Teamspeak so epicly even I privately felt I had been out of line and Nihimon kicked him from the TSV Teamspeak.

If I'm a troll now (which I won't deny) what does that make me back then?

They made no deals just a lot of hub-bub on their forums about reversing the damage I had done and their diplomatic efforts with Pax paying off. Now they are dying to Pax members.

The mere fact you need a deal with Pax to not have them slaughter your members prooves my point. It's a legitimate strategy but not the kind of allies I wanted for the group I had built.

The groups you cited are EoX members. Basically your client states. Regardless of how harsh or soft / demanding or lenient your rule is the basic fact remains they are your underlings.

Twist words as you may I think my point stands.

To this day if I could go back and change anything about my leadership in TEO the only things I'd really change is the quality of members I accepted and handing over the reigns to Lifedragn. Also I'd be a bit more clear about the fact TEO's primary purpose was to protect others and not ourselves. I think the main thing that really sunk me was accepting too many Carebears into a group that was intended to be militant and then caring too much about keeping members happy who really never should have been in TEO to begin with. TEO would have been considerably stronger as a far smaller group with less people such as Cheatle that never cared about it's true intent but joined because we won the landrush.

We might not have gotten first settlement pick but I'd have a more manageable group size and more valuable members.

My decision to not foster relations with Pax was always extremely solid.

Never really cared for the guy, before or after the fall from grace.

I never cared much for you either. It was evident to me fairly quickly that Pax only cared about subordinate parties. If we didn't want to bow to Pax diplomacy with them would be a wasted effort, and so I never bothered trying to get on your good side after that.

While that seems to be the main thing those within TEO criticized about my time as their leader I think it's pretty apparent now by the Golgothans slaughtering their members despite their efforts to make friends with you that I had the correct approach.

So of course all of your accusations of griefing are being met with a quick/official responces over there then?

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.

The part that makes me so happy is how Mbando, Nihimon etc. are throwing out this
griefer accusation as though it has some kind of power behind it but aside from dragged up Ryan quotes GW is notably silent.

That means one of two things:

A. Goblinworks doesn't agree with your definition of griefing.
B. They simply don't have the time to deal with such petty matters.

If they don't have time to deal with it with this tiny population size, what makes you think they ever will?

This pleases me VERY greatly because both individuals seemed to think GW's community policement would be perfect, and there would be no use for player run anti-griefer groups. To that I say....

TOLD YOU SO!!!

also...

WHERE IS YOUR GOD NOW?!

I'm sure Slammy wasn't hacking, and it was probably fully unintentional rather than deliberate bug abuse. That said, bragging about a "victory" and mocking those who "lost" to him for complaining, even after admitting it was probably a glitch, is pretty weak form. That's the sort of behavior I saw a lot in the Runescape community.

Trash-talking and bragging have their place in any PvP game, but good braggarts make sure their brags aren't bogus before boasting 'bout battles. ;)

There is one simple rule in PVP, especially after loot drop is in. Victory = victory. While win conditions may be debateable depending on measure used attacking the means of achieving victory after someone wins by every semi-meaningful measure is generally something done by sore losers. "Fighting honorably" is code word for failing to employ clever tactics by enemies who will never be satisfied the conditions were honorable unless you let them win.

By now three things are obvious.

1. Slammy won.
2. Slammy isn't in trouble.
3. His enemies are very butthurt. (Bonus victory!)

So good job Slammy.

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.

This topic pleases me.

Macros are generally done through client side programs. Many come for free with high end gaming hardware and some are available for free online. They are nearly undetectable if done well so the best counter is not to design a game where predicable combos are the best way to kill people.

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.

The way most of those kind of abilities worked is that they were good if used against skilled players and GREAT against people just cluelessly spamming through combos. If you throw that on a player that has mostly spell abilities they are really gimped until someone removes it or it times out. But they won't just kill themselves while you watch and laugh if they are paying attention.

Another great example is healing hands. That was a huge one for my primary build. The proper response is to switch to your heaviest damage abilities and stop making any fast/weak attacks. You would be surprised how many assassins healed me to full health by going nuts on me with their double daggers while I had HH up. Beyond clueless players though I used it on people who were being focus fired, which is how it earned a central place in my build.

Kyutaru wrote:

Neadenil Edam wrote:

KarlBob wrote:

I suspect a lot of us are still training our muscle memory for attack patterns. I'm clumsily pawing at a keyboard and a trackball, and I'm lucky to successfully launch my utilities, much less their upstairs neighbors.

Serious PvP types will have the attack patterns macro programmed to a single key on their gaming keyboard.

... just saying

Ah yes, the developers of RIFT knew this would happen and gave everyone macro access from the start. I loved doing maximum raid DPS by repeatedly pressing a single button. For PVP, I had my single button Rift Blade Voidknight chamber combo that could throw out 7000 dps.

Single button combat will happen.

This is why DDO combat is superior. Tactical positioning and movement over macro garbage. Instead of repetitive combat sequences. You actually get a dynamic unique fight every time. Meh whatever I tried.

My personal favorite tab-target game was the original Guild Wars. Please, use a macroed spell rotation against me. I dare you.

I loved the character I had that ran that. When you consider most players had ~500 health you quickly start to understand how I killed A LOT of people who weren't paying attention before they realized what was going 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.

Lol. They broke your treaty and now they are thumbing their noses at you. What the heck need is there for petitioners and tribunals? Either you have the goblin-balls to do something about it or you don't.

Idea for a new restaurant at a farm.

You get to see where the animals live, how they're treated, and learn something about how the farmers manage the herds.

You get to see where the vegetables are grown, dig your own hands into the soil and pull them from the ground, and learn something about the way those crops are managed.

You get to be present when the animal is slaughtered and butchered (if you want), see how the meat is aged, and watch expert chefs trim and cut it into portions.

You get to watch those chefs for hours as they prepare your meal, all the while learning about spices and cooking techniques.

And just when you start to hear the sizzle as that steak is put into the frying pan, you get to listen to someone b*~%@ that they're hungry and this is a ridiculous way to feed people, and it's not even cooked, and no one wants to eat raw vegetables or bloody meat.

I have an idea. Let's promote this idea based on the idea of that when the first course is prepared they'll have a tasty steak but there's nothing extra. Then let's serve the first course as a raw chunk of the poorest cut of beef with a whole heap up vegetables (that aren't that great either), and slide the rest of the plate away if the touch the beef, then say "the first course is for the vegetarians!"

People realized this game would be content light early on. They just didn't realize the little content they would deliver would suck.

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.

Andius the Afflicted wrote:

Guurzak wrote:

Holding onto anger is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die. Uthgar, I wish you great fortune in finding your happiness somewhere else.

This is a diplomatically worded, "We don't care why you left so go the f$+! away."

No. It wasn't and it's not. Guurzak may be an Evil skull-bashing orc, but he's also one of the best posters on this forum.

It doesn't matter how nice he is or even how sincere he was in what he said. I don't see how you could interpret his post as anything other than an invitation to leave and insinuation that Uthgar's continued input I of no value to either Uthgar himself or this community.

I don't even doubt Guurzak believes Uthgar will be happier if he leaves and wishes him the best but that doesn't make anything I said less true.

I think if PFO's community stopped inviting people to leave (even if politely) and instead paid serious consideration to WHY they were leaving it would be a huge first step in getting this title back on track.

@Caldeathe

I have no accounts left for this game and no need or desire to make allies of most of the people here. I honestly do hope to see this game fail because I feel it has no capacity to become a really great title and I will derive enjoyment out of seeing so many people I dislike so much proven wrong.

However I'm still offering my (mostly) unfiltered insight on what changes could be made to make it succeed because:

1. You won't listen anyway.
2. It gives me "I told you so" rights.
3. I'm bored and I have this idle idea I'll probably never carry through on but still enjoy thinking about of making my own MMO someday. And discussing the ideas allows me to analyze them. Honestly keeping most of the people I hate ignoring me yields more fruitful discussion in that direction. I never felt Nihimon, Being, Valkner and a few others has particularly great ideas for this game even when we were allies while there are a few people put there like Blaeringr who's ideas and feedback are really worth consideration.

So really if you don't listen then your loss.

Because I truly do not care that I'm disliked by those whom I dislike as well.

I don't care what year you got your first pong machine, I care that this community does not seem at all knowledable of the other sandbox MMOs being developed and currently on the market. You can't provide useful feedback on a game when you describe features it shares with many other titles as being unique to it and have no knowledge of how it's strengths and weaknesses measure up against it's competitors.

To describe people who do such things as having an unrefined pallete in terms of sandbox gaming is accurate no matter when you played for first game, how much time you've spent gaming. Or how much time you've invested into one or two similar competitors.

Agree with that. But I'm having fun playing it the way it is now. I expect my fun to increase as the game gets better.

I think the best way to describe it is those who currently enjoy PFO have an unrefined palatte in terms of sandbox MMOs. If you've dined on nothing but plants your whole life, or been hooked up to an IV a poor cut of meat may taste pretty good.

Just like if you're new to MMOs or haven't played many sandbox titles there may seem to be a lot to like about PFO.

The issue is will the greater market consume your cut of meat when put up against the other cuts in the butcher shop? Especially when yours is one of the most costly cuts of meat.

Being somewhat a sandbox enthusiast, I can't see how anyone well informed on the alternatives could say this game is even among the top 5 sandboxes or has much hope of reaching that status.

Quote:

And one I can see by the attitude of this community will result in a "good riddance" to anyone it causes to leave

Nah, there have been some folks like Pexx that have left, and people were genuinely sad to see him go.

I think a lot of folks just don't like you in particular, mainly because you're pedantic, uselessly repetitive, and basically a troll.

I'm not referring to me in particular but the general trend.

Case and point:

Holding onto anger is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die. Uthgar, I wish you great fortune in finding your happiness somewhere else.

This is a diplomatically worded, "We don't care why you left so go the f&@$ away." These people who were missed when they left are people who shut up walked away, and did not take the time to elaborate their problems with the game.

The PFO community is extremely adverse to negative feedback. The only voices given credit are those that agree with them. Improvement is largely derived from the ability to learn from your mistakes and adapt. With Ryan rather ignorant of many of the successes and failures of other similar titles as is evident in areas such as the reputation system and the community quickly shouting down any voices that point out his mistakes the rapid rate at which this game is plunging toward failure is starting to take even me aback a bit.

I may take great pleasure in watching my predictions come true but at least I also offer the reasons I hold the opinions I do instead of "This game sucks and will fail. Lolz"

Also as to all the "troll" comments. Yes, I strongly dislike this community and derive a lot of pleasure from how poorly things are going. The fact people are getting more and more worked up over it is telling me their is growing anxiety and frustration which also pleases me when coming from those who are feeding the problem. I suppose that does make me a troll but I once poured immense passion into seeing this project and your community succeed. To date I've put far more effort into building it up than tearing it down.

So I mean, whatever. It's not like I'm a generally mean or negative person. I'm actually very well loved in most of the social circles I belong to. I just really dislike you guys because I feel on a whole this is an ignorant, overly sensitive, politically correct to the point of reverse bigotry (for many of you), and just flat out of touch with reality community. I never realized just how stifling this community was until I left. I just wish my ArcheAge group spent more time on the forums so I could continue to hang out with them while all I'm somewhere I can't access my computer.

@KarlBob

EVE is a well designed game with consistent growth and a constant influx of new players. From the very beginning there will be hundreds or thousands of players at or near your skill level. And of course you can carebear it up in high sec or join faction warfare if you don't feel ready to compete in 0.0. Also unless you're talking Titans the training time to max a single build is far, far shorter.

EVE also makes ship variety into a HUGE deal. For instance a ship designed to be optimal at taking down enemy battleships may not be just poor at taking down frigates. Due to turret tracking speeds it may find itself entirely incapable of even scratching them. This is a fact that helps a lot of newb's out by both assisting them in avoiding many of the super powerful players and creating highly useful roles for weaker players in fleets.

The issue with PFO is at this point I see chances more likely than not PFO will never see the kind of growth EVE does, and even quite likely that fairly soon in the population growth will grow stagnant and cease to happen. That's based on my original projections that no less than 2000 accounts would see semi-active use for a standard gaming week during the first month.

If that happens you have a higher vet to newb ratio resulting in less competitors on your level. That makes things far worse than EVE. Also a wizard may not be ideal against a rogue or whatever rock paper scissor dynamics this game has but you will hit them, so twinked vets can kill any form of newb. And of course the game isn't really friendly to those who want to stay inside the safe areas for any prolonged period of time while they wait to get competive.

If newb's find themselves consistent prey for vets they will not stick around to get on a competitive level and the longer to reach that level the truer that statement is.

It's just an issue you are going to run into the way this game is designed. And one I can see by the attitude of this community will result in a "good riddance" to anyone it causes to leave, and never be solved via crowdforging.

@Tyncale

Well based on my experience in Darkfall the absolute top of the line gear was more of a novelty thing than a major factor in faction/player strength. It's just too darn expensive to replace if lost. What's really going to make a huge deal is when that player who's been there forever is 5% stronger in 15 different areas. Think of that as being less like 105% as strong and much closer to 1.05 to the power of 15 converted to a percentage their strength (207%). Combat stats tend to stack that way.

That's going to be further amplified by the fact that the most powerful groups are often going to have doctrines that constantly change based on the current FOTM builds they expect you to be able to fit your character into.

@Tyncale

Most Indy sandboxes limp along not really ever going anywhere big but not ever getting shut down either.

However I'll reassert my point PFO's ridiculously long training time to optomize a single build will be an issue to new players, and if growth is poor that issue will be compounded because vet players that have been playing religiously since launch will make up a significantly larger portion of the population. I could see that turning slow growth, or just treading water, into negative growth and an eventual shutdown.

I would hope revision to those systems will be made fast enough to prevent bleeding to death but I think once people climb high enough on the power ladder the decisions needed to fix it would be wildly unpopular with crowdforgers. That's one of the huge weaknesses with the system is players who decided to stay often will not support things needed to fix problems driving others away.

Can you give a summarized translation please?

For personal satisfaction and "I told you so" factor I would love nothing more than to see the raw data on PFO's population activity.

If I was Goblinworks I'd hold of as long as I could on making that information public.

This game was marketed primarily to the tabletop audience. There are no bloodthirsty hordes banging down the door to try this game. If this game can get a good combat and PVP system and if it becomes successful enough for word about it to spread the PVPers will come in hordes.

EE was always the time I saw for those who wanted the community to belong to groups other than random gankers to organize build up and prepare for the OE.

That was based on Ryan's model of slow and consistant growth for PFO. I don't believe PFO will show consistent growth anymore which does mean the mooks may never show up in force. It unfortunately also means no growth in budget for PFO's development and possibly even future lay offs or project cancellation.

I see that future as more likely than EVE-like success which played a huge part in my decision to sell off all my accounts.

Well my most dismal projections for EE had 2000 accounts (or 1/3rd of the people who paid 100$ to get in first month) playing for at least a few days.

Keeping in mind DTs don't equal accounts do you think that mark has been met?

My personal thoughts is PFO's core players + a few would be consistently playing and each new month or major update would see a sharp population spike followed by a sharp decline much like seen in other Indy sandbox titles.

So far your reports all consistent with that it's just how few people seem to have shown for the first month after paying so much to do just that, that surprises me.

I hadn't thought about the fact that the majority of players in the game have 1 free alt per account.

@Thod I simply totaled the numbers you gave and asked two questions. You'll notice one of those questions was what % of active players you believe aren't settlement members, so that factor was not overlooked.

Anyway If I remember right there were about 6000 accounts that paid a significant ammount to get in first month. All of which came with DTs. So yeah even I'm a bit thrown off by these numbers.

It would take over 3 times more players than those listed not counting any DTs to meet my lowest predictions for the first month activity of this game.

So totaling all major(ish) settlements there are 443 players total. What is the best estimate of the % of the population that is active but does not belong to a settlement?

Also I'm assuming that list accounts for both online and offline players?

@Midnight

The way I've seen it work in Darkfall is you have your every day gear and your siege gear. Every day gear is what you are willing to throw into every little skirmish you encounter. Siege gear is the gear the you don for actual important events such as a battle that determines the ownership of a city.

Siege gear tends to be the shiniest gear people can afford. Generally even shinier than PvE gear as war targets may jump you at any moment during your PvE.

If things remain as they are when I tried in Alpha everyone is wearing their siege gear everywhere which strongly favors PvE players as they have the money to invest in the good stuff, while in a loot drop game the best PvPers wear the best gear for everyday purposes because they are the least likely to lose it and can make the best use of it.

In all fairness, TEO's reprisal blob was bigger than the blob they eventually caught up to and would likely have had a very good chance to achieve a "victory" in a sanctioned (non-rep) battle.

Of course, throw in husks, and we get to see how many of their number REALLY want to PVP. If form-up takes 2 hours now, imagine when players have to risk their shiny gear that helps them PvE.

I'm not saying they are risk averse, just that it will be interesting when they have to weigh (for example) the 66 iron and 66 coal it takes for Pot Plate +2 versus how quickly they can lose it.

X hours to gather vs. Y minutes to lose it.

Then we see who comes back and how often.

Right now you can die 20 times before your gear goes away. When it disappears (or has a chance to) on your very first death, things will get interesting. Especially if you are the attacker, because it can be a long way home to re-equip. You can carry extras, but that might just wind up in your husk too (depending on how husk mechanics are finalized).

I think the big deal is that if this game is ever to reach the promises it's made gear will be a really big deal, but in loot drop games it's not about the gear you can achieve but the gear you can sustain. If you can go and hit them at any given point and it takes two hours to see a real response, they might be able to rouse themselves for the major PvP events but how many players and how much gear will they lose during the skirmishes outside the big PvP windows?

Then again. There are very few faces on these forums I don't recognize, and the protagonists who would have been their main enemies are on a whole, not willing to endure the lack of quality as well as their alliance has. So with little population growth and a decline of protagonists TEO actually does stand a much better chance than I originally accounted for.

It would have been glorious fun if you had gone from Hammerfall to Brighthaven and found the defenders' preparations.

And stupid. Why raid the enemy capitol when you can weaken their alliance by picking off easy targets in outlying settlements?

Expecting the enemy to do such is like when the British got angry the colonists kept attacking their supply trains from cover instead of lining up all their soldiers on the battlefield and attacking head on every time.

They can cling to whatever form of "honor" they believe in but who won the war in the end?

I'm simply pointing out it sounds like your "glorious victory" was a matter of letting your allies get farmed for two hours before you took the zerg I built you and pushed inside a town where many of the enemy couldn't even go and accomplished nothing inside.

It sounds roughly equivalent to an old Freelancer rival who once claimed victory after a battle where he died countless times without making a single kill because his opponent got bored and left and he "held the field".

Tell us more about your glorious victories when there is any meaningful measure of such implemented.

TEO Cheatle wrote:

took their tower, and finally took their Keep!

You've singlehandedly fixed PvP without dev involvement????

Or do you mean you took close to 2 hours to enact a form-up and when you finally berated enough of your carebears to put down their shovels and craft a weapon you discovered many Golgothans were too rep damaged to enter their own settlement without Thornguard aggro, so you milled around in Golgotha for a while and took a screenshot?

Please, please don't tell me you forgot the "glorious victory" screenshot.

Hearing Cheatle's accounts of battles is kind of like listening to a child give an account of what they did on the playground.

Lacking any real war mechanics or any meaningful impact from PvP (Aside from receiving rep penalties for winning) he gets to make up his own victory conditions and paint fanciful pictures of how he and his friends always win the day.

No wonder he thinks this game is good. When 90% of the action is taking place in his imagination, there is little need for actual solid mechanics.

To be fair I actually was one of the few people who really enjoyed The Phantom Menace. Including Jar-Jar. I was also of the appropriate age to do so at the time.

It's the development and fall of Anakin in two and three that really killed the prequels for me. They turned the little emo boy Anakin into the stoic badass Darth Vader. And the fall was not at all convincing. One moment he's talking about how they have to take Palpatine to stand trial because it's the Jedi way, later that night he's...