Beacher's page

For those of you who haven't seen it, the very first demo was just posted on the Goblinworks Kickstarter page: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1675907842/pathfinder-online-technology -demo/posts/356601

My thoughts:

I like the character models and movement. I'm immensely relieved to see they haven't fallen prey to that awful shininess we see on TSW, TOR, and Rift toons. They seem to have a slightly more "old school" look, which I thoroughly appreciate. My only dislike there was how statue-still they look when standing idle.

Combat looked slower/clunkier than I was hoping, but I'll hold off more opinions for now, since it's in such an early stage.

I hope the final "chat bubble" text that appears over avatars' heads is something other than pale, thin red. It was very difficult to read.

I would have liked to see more landscape. We all know what dungeons look like, but I think it's the natural environment that ultimately gives a game its sense of "placeness."

A BIG congrats to the whole Goblinworks team. Great, great work so far. I'm very excited to be even a small part of this, and I can't wait to see more!

I may have missed something. What to the different colors mean?

I think LOTRO supports roleplay very well by having the following features:

-Custom emotes. There's an "Emote" channel specifically for this. If you begin any text with /emote, /em, /me, or /e, anything that follows will appear as a custom emote. This is extremely useful when you want to describe your characters' actions as well as speech.

-Embedded emotes. LOTRO has a TON of emotes. Some have animations, while others just spit out some premade text. If you being your emote with the name of an emote that has an animation, the animation will play in tandem with your custom text. So by typing "/sit drops into the grass and sighs dramatically." I end up with a custom emote that also performs the /sit action.

-Chat bubbles. There's an option to toggle on this feature, which makes everything you type in the general /say channel appear in gold letters above your head. It's a great RP aid, since it helps you see lines that you might otherwise miss.

Given the ability to make custom emotes, I personally feel there is little point in an MMO making emotes *unless* those emotes have animations attached to them.

The above list is what I would consider the bare minimum necessary to support RP in an MMO. It's possible to RP in MMOs that do it in other ways (Aion had no custom emotes, so actions had to be denoted by **'s, and The Secret World makes *everything* you type appear in a chat bubble above your head), but it's just not ideal. In the end, I stay with or leave an MMO based on how much fun the RP there is, so I think about these things a lot.

I feel like it's far too early for me to decide on an in-game group for an MMO that hasn't launched yet (tried that with TSW and it didn't work out so well), but The Seventh Veil definitely appeals to me. It looks to be the most in line with what I would be seeking in PFO.

Beacher is a jester. He's entangled with the worlds of theatre, comedy, performance arts in general. I have no idea how well-supported those themes will be in PFO, and do not hold particularly high hopes given that it's historically been a fairly niche interest in MMOs. However, it sounds like The Seventh Veil would be a great place to explore those themes (especially through RP).

So while I'm not ready to say "ZOMG let me join nao!" I will say "awesome work!" and keep watching like the friendly lurker I am. You've done a really impressive job with set-up so far, and I'm eager to see where things go next.

...Okay, okay. It's also possible I'm just a fan of KitNyx and Nihimon, and want to play tagalong.

I'm generally in favor of exclusively digital downloads, due to the environmental benefits. That, and I'm a BIG sucker for exclusive in-game goodies...

That said, the fact that GW is sending out so many material shinies for Kickstarter backers leads me to believe that a physical Collectors' Edition is well within the realm of possibility.

Whether or not I would personally buy it depends entirely on how useful the collectors' items are. I'd much rather have an awesome-looking set of dice than a giant plastic statue that does nothing but compete for my desk space all day (yes, Alduin, I'm looking at you).

I would really love to see something like this in place.

It's always bothered me in video games how easy it is to just take, and take, and take with little to no thought given toward the consequence of one's actions.

I remember playing old games of Age of Empires, and how my family and I would eventually cut down every last tree on the map. The game would then promptly end because, well...we couldn't build anymore. I would be thrilled to see a game that had a *real consequence* for depletion of resources (as is true in AoE), as well as a *real incentive* for harvesting sustainably (which I have yet to encounter in a game).

I think most of these would be very easy (and reasonable) to enforce. In LOTRO, all names are capitalized by default, and nothing beyond letters are allowed.

Of course, this doesn't stop players with names like Manboobs, but it's a great start. Three, four and five are a bit more subjective, depending on how one defines vulgar and immersion breaking.

I admit that this is something of a concern for me as well. I'm not really a casual player, but I'm a long way from hardcore, and have a lot of real-life obligations that prevent me from logging into any game consistently and reliably.

I'm not so concerned about PFO being *enjoyable* for a casual player. I'm sure it will be, especially dungeon content. What I wonder about is things like player settlements. I'd rather not be sitting at work and worrying that someone might be burning my precious little level 1 tavern to the ground. I can't be in the game world to defend my creations 24/7, so I'm intensely curious to see what sort of systems will be in place to help defend them for me.

This hadn't actually occurred to me, but the more I think about it, the more I love it. Most fantasy worlds I've encountered have at least one prominent underground civilization, from majestic Moria in The Lord of the Rings to the high-tech anti-nuclear bunkers in The Hunger Games.

This might also help alleviate some of the strain on landscape with all of us running about willy-nilly trying to establish settlements. It's also a way for player settlements to conceal vast resources from the casual observer. I like the idea of the surface presence being just the tip of the iceberg.

My only real request for this issue is that the world be consistent with itself. I don't mind there being physics that aren't compatible with our reality, as long as they're compatible with PO's reality. I don't mind a universe that has rules that are different from ours, but I really hate to see a universe bending its own rules.

I'm not sure how I feel about such depths of anonymity. I do like the idea of people having to learn about other players as they go, but it's a commonly accepted fact that anonymity on the Internet often leads to really idiotic and tactless behavior. I think it's better if people's names feature prominently, because then they have to worry about the reputation attached to that name.

This seems particularly important in an RP environment, given that RP communities are much smaller than the overall MMO playing population. If people are nice, I want for them to be remembered and referred to as nice. If people are jerks, I want that to come back and haunt them. All of that would be impossible if we have the option to hide everything about our avatar.

If I encountered a club-wielding giant in real life, I would run away as fast as possible. It would be nice to have incentive to flee from things that our characters could never *actually* subdue in one-on-one combat.

Like Arbalester said, at least a knockback would be a nice touch. I don't really feel epic when I single-handedly take down a behemoth of an opponent. I just feel like I'm cheating. (Unless I'm climbing all over it and stabbing in in soft places, a la Shadow of the Colossus!)

Feeling actual fear for my own pretty hide is a rare gem of delight in a video game. It's fun to encounter things that take a lot of creativity and resourcefulness to defeat, as opposed to "who can last longer while dealing damage." It's even more fun when, under a lot of circumstances, that opponent is one swing away from grinding my bones into meal to make his bread.

Being able to zone out and mow your way through enemy after enemy has its merits. But I am of the opinion that a little fear and uncertainty in an encounter is the better option any way you, dare I say, swing it.

Welcome! I'm new around here, too, and also hopeful that PO will feel like "home."

Being in a dynamic world that actually changes according to the actions of the players. Finally escaping the Greek Hell of Sysiphus pushing that same rock up that same hill day after day.

Haha, yes. This. It's so discouraging seeing the changes I've made on a game-world eventually despawn so the next player can come and do exactly what I just did. I'd like to know I'm having a lasting, legitimate impact on my virual surroundings!

I like this idea quite a lot. I've always wanted an MMO that allows for a healthy helping of uncertainty. If there are an x amount of interesting crafted items that start out as mysteries, that players have to discover through experimentation, that would just be superb. It would be great if the first person to "discover" a crafted sword/tapestry/meal/spell/wheelbarrow etc. got to name it, though I'm not sure what sort of tech that would require.

Essentially, I'm interested in seeing a very open any mysterious world where players really have to work to understand it, and are rewarded for their innovation and adventurousness.

I've seen a few other games that even turn player housing and transportation into a crafting endeavor. I like the idea of having to go gather the lumber needed to build your new cabin in the woods, melt down sand for the cabin's windows, spin thread and skin a bear for the rugs, and forage for berries to put in the pies you set out on the table. As long as crafting stays a truly optional part of the game, I don't see any reason why the depth of it need be limited. Detailed crafting offers a lot of opportunity for immersion in a way that many other traditional MMO game systems can't provide.

I agree completely that an RPer must abandon the structure of the RP medium at time (in this case, the MMO) to have a more effective RP experience, but that shouldn't excuse a lack of development support for features that are purely for RP purposes. I want to use my imagination to complement the game world and its features...not completely overwrite it.

Do I want pretty clothes and hundreds of furniture options before they have a solid combat system? No. But I won't play a game that refuses to support my RP playstyle, and that begins with stuff like this.

Very well said! I second this wholeheartedly.

It would be really awesome to have your mood modify your emotes, so that if you /flex while /angry, you get a very threatening gesture, but if you /flex while /flirting, you get an entirely different result.

This idea just delights me. I think emotion is something that often gets overlooked entirely in-game. It would be nice if emoted moods had an impact on something, even a small something.

Ooh boy. This is a question I've been waiting for!

I think there are a few bare-bones things that really make or break roleplay in an MMO.

Cosmetic Appearances -- This is a big one for me (and a lot of RPers). The ability to look cool goes a long way for RPs and, let's be honest, most MMO players in general. It's nice to have the luxury of flipping quickly between several styles of dress without having to carry three distinct sets of equipment in your inventory.

Dyable Clothing -- Looking good is so much easier when you get to choose your signature colors! Please make clothing dyeable, or RPers like me will go daft hoarding every white item we can find, and so on and so forth.

Emotes -- Good ones, animated ones, and lots of them! This includes the ability to lie on beds, sit on chairs, lean on walls, etc. I also love the previously mentioned ideas of earnable skill-based emotes.

A Biography Option -- In-game bio features are a great way to suss out someone's writing style from a distance. It also shows that the person has put some care and thought into their character, and isn't just running around flagged for RP for the heck of it.

Player Housing -- Nothing thrills an RPer quite like making his own little mark on his digital world. The more customizable, the better (and that goes for all cases, really).

There are some features I've been dying to see in an MMO that aren't specifically RP-related as much as they are immersion-related. I would love, love to see a robust weather system that discouraged adventuring during storms and encouraged it during sunlight. Or constructable campsites that allow for quicker regeneration in the wilderness. There's also the concept of buffs and health/stamina regeneration bonuses in inns and taverns...basically more excuses for people to actually seek out social centers and, you know, socialize.

The deeper the world, the deeper the RP within it will be. I truly hope PO creates an environment that not only supports RP, but encourages it. RPers will always be in the minority, but PO is in the unique position to be able to cater to those minorities that have often gone overlooked in other MMOs. We RPers are a loyal bunch! We play a lot, and we play often, and we'll do any number of crazy things to get a particular housing item or armour piece. We usually have our hands in every aspect of the game, we're the ones who deeply appreciate the lore and storytelling woven into the game, and we'll stay with it long past its hayday.

Hi everyone!

I just signed up, so I wanted to drop in and say hello to everyone here on the Pathfinder Online forum. I'm very excited about what I've seen on the blog, and am looking forward to seeing the game develop. I think the team working on PO is doing everything right so far.

Out of curiosity, will Goblinworks have a presence at PAX East this year? I realize it isn't too long from now, but I figured I'd ask just in case.

Can't wait to start becoming part of the community and seeing what ideas crop up (I've seen a lot of good ones so far). For now, all I can say is keep up the good work! It's refreshing to see so many thoughtful and innovative ideas in one place.

Cheers,
Claire