Beleriand's page

Punctuation in character names makes customer service very hard.

"I was just harassed!"

"What was the name of the character that harassed you?"

"Uhm, it was something like Za'kk'-unlu'n ..."

What are the odds someone gets that gibberish right?

And you know who likes gibberish names?

People who intend to harass other people.

I agree with the peanut gallery on this. Even seemingly un-gibberish names can be difficult to remember.

Are there any plans to have character names in the chat and combat logs be hyperlinks(or right-clickable)? So even if the jerk runs off you can easily right-click their name in the log and select the 'report' option. Maybe take the human element out of having to remember and correctly type names.

If my culture is once again oppressed by James Jacobs and his racist conspirators, I will be forced to burn the Paizo Golem in gnomeffigy.

Who left the kobold cage open again? Gotta keep that cage door locked!

That brings up a good point, are there going to be ships? I mean, clearly not ocean-going galleys, but what about barges and stuff? Do we know?

There is a brief mention of docks in the Player-Created Buildings and Structures blog post.

Under the 'Other Kind of Structures' section:

We also envision the ability of characters to build and improve roads that increase the speed of characters using fast travel, to erect docks which will permit watercraft access to rivers and lakes, and to build bridges to allow roads to span those rivers.

Coming to PfO in 2023: Naval Combat!! (or at least small fishing dinghies)

Soon we will all be working under Kobold Cleaver...or dead by his hand.

In all seriousness, keep posting to the forums. Your posts are great :)

I can't stand MMO elitism. I outright despise a small percentage of players 'Lording' over the rest.

I believe that in order for an online community to thrive, it must first a) be a community and b) be challenged enough to grow. Within this challenge there will be winners and losers but I hope that PfO is able to find a healthy balance.

Per my original post, I refer to the first Goblin Works blog A Journey of a Thousand Miles Begins with a Single Step

From the 'Big Things Come in Small Packages' section:

At launch, and for the first seven months following, we will cap new paying players at 4,500 per month. Four thousand five hundred new paying players monthly. We expect to keep only about 25% of those players on a long-term basis, so after we factor in attrition of each month's signups, we end up with 16,500 paying players at the end of that seven-month period.

This game is starting small, which is one of the things that really appealed to me. I didn't propose a Free-to-Play/Mentor gateway to limit new players. Once Free-to-Play is implemenmted, they were already going to be limited.

The reason I posted what I did is because I have played so many MMOs where I started the game and there is no sense of community. I end up wandering around, figuring things out on my own. This isn't to say I'm looking for someone to lead me by the nose, quite the contrary, I would describe myself as a 'Lone Wolf'. But it's the human interaction that makes a game worth playing for a long period of time. Otherwise, you are left with zerging through content and then yawning until the developers present something new.

Imagine the poor parent who has less than 30 minutes to play before leaving for her daughter's soccer game. Imagine further her character needing to go from the north end of the map to the south for some purpose; I can believe she might not be able to "accomplish" anything with that day's play, perhaps even including reaching her final destination.

This is something I was alluding to in my 'Difficulty vs. Accessibility' post.

I respect that all players are different and I don't want to see PfO be a 'quit your job, your spouse leaves you, your children no longer recognize you' type of game, but I have a serious peeve with the tendency of MMOs these days to cater to the 'lowest common denominator'. I don't like the idea of players being able to teleport all over the map on a whim. This diminishes casters and magical items. From what I've read on the blog and forum, even Fast Travel isn't designed to be 100% safe.

I would hope that PfO would be more like a typical Table Top session: It's dangerous to leave town, it's dangerous to enter that dungeon, and it's even more dangerous to get back to town with all of that shiny treasure.

To use your example, the player in question can try to cover as much ground as they can in 30 minutes. If they can make it safely, they can log out and continue their journey the next time they log in.

/beatdeadhorse

While I understand the desire for some players to be able to get the character names that they want accomplishing in-game deeds, I believe that character names is an excellent opportunity for GoblinWorks to generate extra income, free of any accusations of 'Pay-to-Win'. I hope that they are able to allow any name in any format, for a price, as long as it is within the regulations of taste.

I'm a fan of the @handle method that links a character to a player account because it makes befriending/ignoring characters based on the human player rather than the character played. I understand that this is extreme, but sometimes 'hops meet yeast' and other times 'oil meets water'.

I'm sure there are many arguments for and against the database structure that Lee proposed. I'm for it for the selfish reason in that I like the idea of Nihimon being the server 'Highlander', going around murdering all of the poor souls who made the tragic mistake of naming their character 'Nihimon'.

From the RESPECT: Find Out What It Means to Me! blog entry(look for the 'I Don't Give A Damn 'Bout My Bad Reputation' section):

A "reputation economy" is a method of giving weight to people's actions. Earning a good reputation is valuable, and having a bad reputation can close a lot of doors. eBay's buyer and seller ratings are an example of a reputation economy.

Your character will have a reputation as well. As your character undertakes various actions for others, those others will have the opportunity to provide feedback on the results, and you will have the opportunity to do the same in reverse.

I would much rather see PfO try to promote positive player interaction instead of removing all barriers and watching a 'Race to the Bottom' in player behavior. Dealing with players with no reputation(eg:Alts) at least lets everyone know they are on their own as far as possible negative outcomes are concerned.

Auction House pricing scams are unavoidable, but personally I believe a player should be punished for an inattention to detail anyway.

I've never liked player run 'lotteries', and I certainly wouldn't mind them implementing in-game lotteries to curb that type of player behavior.

I've often wondered if it was within legal limits to run in-game casinos. I'm sure they would be popular.

Hello all. Been lurking for a few weeks now, but this discussion prompted me to chime in.

There are excellent ideas presented here, but as Hark mentioned, alot what was brought up is probably out of scope for what they were planning.

At the very least, I hope that they require characters to have to seek out Player Characters who lead in a faith to join a particular religion rather than simply choosing a deity upon creation. This would promote basic religious interaction and roleplaying to start.

Perhaps the PC faith leaders will be allowed to keep track of their congregation (or cult) following, creating a religious subset to a settlement. It would allow for more roleplaying initially and could eventually evolve into conflict vehicles.

The idea of having accepted deities chosen by the settlement managers, faith leaders for those deities, and NPC conversion as mentioned above could make for interesting times.

I hope the devs get a chance to read this thread and are willing to start small, with an eye towards expanding faiths, conversion and ultimately more conflict.

After all, it's the deity/religious aspect of TT that's always given it its 'Cult' appeal. :)