Capitalocracy's page

So I haven't really seen any indication that work has been done on this, but someone somewhere has done some work, because my 660, which is apparently ancient now, is suddenly much more compatible with the game since the last patch or two. Before several of the armors and some trainers had some kind of compatibility issue that made them look like a Picasso, but now I can wear my embroidered robes and look like a human again. The game is also more stable and my graphics card drivers are freezing up less often. I have made no changes on my end except updating regularly, which I'd been doing before.

Whatever you did, GW, good work, thanks. I think a lot of the positive things that are happening go unsaid here, so I thought I'd post this.

It is with a heavy heart that I inform you that due to the potential terrorist threats posed by other settlements, in order to ensure the survival of The Free Settlers, I will be taking a firmer hand in leading the Company. Specifically, for their own safety, all members, instead of being free and equal citizens with voting rights on company policy, will be part of an intricate caste system. So join the Free Settlers if you wish to play as:

- A slave.

- An indentured servant.

- A serf.

There is a possibility for advancement in the ranks for those who work particularly hard, however. Especially skilled crafters with lots of recipes will have the option (at my sole discretion) of becoming minimum wage workers. Note that the only legal currency allowed for trade in The Free Settlers is TansyCoin. All copper, silver, or gold accrued while farming must be paid directly to me in tax.

Anyone who questions our policy will be summarily executed. You can find out more about our new policy here.

The Free Settlers, an independent company in association with the Emerald Lodge settlement, is now accepting Applicants.

The Emerald Lodge is a politically neutral neutral-good settlement centrally located in the middle of the action between two major powers, near the center of the map, which has a unique position right next to the Emerald Spire, Pathfinder Online's first dungeon to be explored. It's the perfect location for merchants, shippers, crafters, explorers, dungeon delvers, PVEers, political power players, or just independent or casual players who want a good spot in the middle of the map where they can quickly get to wherever they need to be in the world.

The Free Settlers (exact in-game spelling: "The Free Settlers") is a Company formed to give independent players a place to call home. Whether you enjoy the idea of being a politically independent or individualist force in the world or you just aren't interested in the politics of Pathfinder Online or need some more time to figure out which settlement is right for you, The Free Settlers will offer any non-bandit player full training support through the Emerald Lodge settlement. As a politically neutral entity, the Emerald Lodge believes it is important to provide this kind of support to independent players, even independent of the Emerald Lodge itself, and so they've agreed to sponsor The Free Settlers.

This might be the perfect Company for you if:

- You wish to remain free and independent but need to be a part of a settlement for training purposes.

- You're not interested in the politics of Pathfinder Online and are looking for settlement support from a company that will not pressure you to become involved in that way.

- You ARE interested in the politics of Pathfinder Online and want to help protect a neutral entity or forge your own path as an independent, or possibly create your own settlement in the future.

- You are not interested in joining a giant settlement or one of the major powers or working under strict rules, but wish to be part of an underdog group that's just large enough to have a fighting chance.

- You want to make a name for yourself as an individual merchant, trader, crafter, adventurer, or soldier, living and dying by your own sweat rather than depending on a group.

- You are a casual player or a player who wants only the occasional help and support of a fellow traveler rather than the full backing of a large group and any expectations that may come along with it.

- You are interested in exploring the Emerald Spire as part of an independent company.

- You are an explorer at heart, and you believe that a small group of independent players can build something meaningful together... and stand together to defend it.

- You think the man wearing the jester cap looks wise and the man wearing the crown looks like a fool.

What The Free Settlers expects of its members:

- We are a neutral group leaning towards good. We accept all comers, but we do not allow banditry.

- As a company under the umbrella of Emerald Lodge, we are expected to follow their rules, which can be found here. We respect Emerald Lodge's political neutrality and though we consider ourselves a separate entity, we will not drag the Emerald Lodge into conflicts through our actions. The possibility for meaningful PVP still exists (especially after the Cataclysm) in the form of settlement defense and the possibility for policing/bounty hunting or even mercenary work, but if you wish to engage in these activities, you should have enough political savvy and communication with EL to make sure not to pull EL unwittingly into war.

- Aside from this small set of reasonable expectations, The Free Settlers are just that, completely free to play the game where and how and with whom they wish.

- We expect you not to be a jerk. We don't want jerks. We don't have to define jerks. If you don't know how to not be one, I'm very sorry. We can discuss individual lessons if absolutely necessary.

What members can expect from The Free Settlers:

- Freedom. Within the game's terms of service and the company's rules, you have the freedom to associate, trade, or worship whomever you choose. You have the freedom of speech. You have the freedom to come and go as you please. You have the freedom to play the game however often and in whatever way you wish. You have no obligation to provide any support or materials or funds or recipes or items to your company (as it has no responsibility to provide them to you).

- A vote. You will have a say in major company decisions. This will be especially important when it comes to spending our company's Influence on support facilities. While we want to contribute to the success of the Emerald Lodge as a whole (and definitely do NOT want to spend our Influence on redundant facilities), we will base our Influence expenditures on our members' needs and our members' votes.

- Support. We are not obliged to offer substantial material support to our members, but within the bounds of our capabilities (and possibly requiring gathering your own raw materials, depending on availability), we will provide refining and crafting services, especially to new players in tier 1, and may provide finished goods or recipes as we see fit and are able. (My own alts are capable of most of tier 1 and will eventually be capable of all tier 1 refining for this purpose.) Members of the company are under no obligation to offer other kinds of support, such as answering questions about the game or coming to a player's defense in a time of need, but are strongly encouraged to do so. The leadership will always do so when available. Anyone at Officer rank is expected to offer any reasonable non-material support they can while they're in-game and available.

- Punch and pie.

Above all, we hope to create a group of people who are supportive, friendly, and just an all-around good group to be a part of... a group that will leave you alone to play the game how you want to play it, or provide a good pool of pickup players to form parties for PVE, or come to the aid of their fellow Settlers when they need it, not because they have to, but because they choose to. To apply for this settlement, just type "/vcapply The Free Settlers" in-game. Thanks for reading. Let's keep the River Kingdoms free!

They CLAIM to be an evil empire, but are they truly evil enough? Come on, guys, I'm sure you can step up the evil a notch.

(This thread posted for the sake of fairness)

An old Zen proverb that I think we all might do well to remember... not that I personally subscribe to any religious or philosophical belief systems that it may be associated with, but it seems like a good story to share today nonetheless.

Imagine yourself in a small boat, fishing in the streams flowing from the Zombie Kitten Mountains under the bridges of Thornkeep. You're enjoying the warm, bright Golarion moon by night, possibly drifting off to sleep as you wait for a fish to take a bite, when suddenly another boat bumps into your own, breaking its hull, costing you durability points, jarring you from your tranquility, and you begin to shout and curse at the jerk who hit you with his boat.

Then you look over and realize the other boat is empty. You've been shouting into the night, but there was no one there to hear you, no one to curse, no one to hurt with your words, no one to blame for your misfortune.

You feel silly for shouting at an empty boat, but then again, what if there had been another person there? Would your shouting have helped any more? It still could have been an accident, or wickedness on their part, but you have little way of knowing... and why should it matter? What's happened to you is the same either way, and if the way you react is so much calmer, so much less stressful to yourself, when you know there's nobody in the other boat, why would you not react the same way if there is someone in the other boat? To put on a show for them? You owe them no such thing. You should react in the way that best suits your own needs.

Getting ganked sucks, and our natural reaction is to be much angrier than we would be if we died at the hands of ogres or goblin shamans or a bug in the system or friendly fire. Likewise, it probably hurts when someone playing a bandit feels vilified by the comments of their victims in a game where playing a bandit is well within the rules, and it's probably pretty darn frustrating to see them ragequit when your intention isn't to drive anyone out of the game (unlike some folks in EVE). But as long as bandits are allowed to be bandits, yet the rest of us aren't constantly hounded by them to the point where we can never enjoy PVE, we all need to lower the temperature a little bit, because we're all really getting what we came for.

If we look at the arguments being made here, a lot of people are saying there aren't enough consequences for PVP, while others are saying the rep system is too harsh. Well, they say a good compromise leaves everyone unhappy, so there's a chance the balance that exists now isn't as bad as we're making it out to be, though we do have every right to make our suggestions for how we think it should be improved and expect features that were promised that aren't implemented yet to eventually come.

We're viewing PVP vs. PVE as a tightrope Goblinworks has to walk to make this game viable to both playstyles, but I think we're making a mistake viewing it this way. I think what they're creating, and more successfully than we're giving them credit for, is not a thin space between those two, but a very broad space with room for both. Time will tell, but it seems to me like they're on the right track, despite some small bumps in the road that we're making mountains out of.

Yes, people should play bandits and kill people and take their stuff. Yes, people should not want their stuff to be taken and organize resistance and publicly call people out who do these things. But you're not going to win every battle on every side of that spectrum, so you should react the same way you do whenever you're playing a game and roll a 1: s*** happens, move on. Dice don't always roll your way, the world doesn't always turn the way you want it to, but the other boat is always empty, there's no reason to shout yourself hoarse.

tldr: maybe we should calm down and be patient and see how the game plays out a bit, because we're all overreacting and we'd all be a lot happier if we just kept the characters in character and reacted out of character to in-game challenges the way we would with any game, whether the challenges are fellow players or AI.

Now offering tier 2 Sawyer services, including Composite Maple Staves +0. Time to craft your T2 bow!

The Crusader Road Post Dispatch is improving its Trading Post services. For those of you who don't know, this is an unofficial River Kingdoms newspaper with a Trading Post section where you can all list items for sale or barter, in Auction Houses or outside of them.

Your Trade Notices are now automatically tweeted on the Twitter account @PFOTrade with the hashtag #PFOtrade. Any ad you list will appear on Twitter a maximum of 30 minutes after you post it. This was surprisingly complicated to accomplish, and required either switching to a classified ads plugin that wouldn't provide all the features the current one provides or spending money. I went with the spending money route. My wife says she still loves me.

Doc has been kind enough to help out in developing a Recipe, Spell, and Maneuver trading service at PathfinderOnlineHQ. We're hoping to add more features in the future, but right now, you can sign up at pathfinderonlinehq.com/user/register and click on "Trade" on the navigation bar, or through your dashboard, and create a Trade list, a Want list, or browse what others have posted. The database is not complete yet, but most of the Tier 1 recipes are there with more, especially tier 2, on the way. Doc is working very hard on this, and it's all manual. Your registration approval is also manual, so be patient, he'll approve your signup very quickly.

And finally, the Crusader Road Post Dispatch's Trading Post now has two posting options, a 31-day option and a 7-day option. You can use either one for most things, but please use the 7-day option for Auction House listings. GW has said that the Auction House listings will be changed to 7 days in the near future, and this prevents items from being listed for too long after they've already been sold or expired. With either option, your Trade Notice will be saved and can be extended before or after it expires (as long as you don't delete it) so permanent items and services can be updated and will remain visible if you renew them.

The Crusader Road Post Dispatch will also soon be providing actual in-game news. Anyone who wishes to be interviewed for news stories, especially ranking members and leaders of settlements and companies, though commentary from everyone is invited, are encouraged to contact me. Anyone who wants to play reporter and write in-character stories is welcome to contact me as well.

If anyone has a little bit of programming experience and wants to take on what I think will be a fairly easy project, I'd be willing to negotiate a payment either through in-game means, in-game means for premium items or months of game time, or out-of-game compensation, though in-game is preferred, just to see GW get rewarded as well.

I want a Wordpress plugin that allows people to register as users and create want lists, have lists, and private or public management lists for recipes and spells, and a search option that matches people who have a recipe on their want list that another person has on their have list and vice versa. In other words, I want a user recipe/expendable management system with capabilities to match users for potential trades.

I want to give the community first crack at this, which is why I'm posting it here. PM me if interested. This would be for The Crusader Road Post Dispatch, my PFO news site with classified ads for trading and auction house notifications.

What is everyone's opinion on playing alts as completely different characters in different companies with different settlements and possibly even different alignments? That's what I was planning on doing since the beginning (agreeing to join TEO with "at least one alt" as part of a Shieldmate arrangement, for example) but it seems like most people are planning to just use alts as a vassal for their main (and admittedly, that's how I've been playing it as well, basically only giving them crafting skills). Settlement/company leaders, would you frown upon a player who used alts as different and independent characters with differing allegiances?

And a semi-related question, are settlement leaders entering talks yet about training arrangements? I certainly hope they'll be making sure those needs are met, as a rambling man in both a geographical and skill area sense.

I killed my evil twin. I was logged in on my DT account, unplugged my router so the laptop could connect, then logged in with my main to find my DT still standing there. I killed him to see what would happen, and he's floating above the Shrine of Pharasma in Emerald Lodge right now.

Now that I'm permanently Guildenstern, I thought this avatar was appropriate. And there was a goblin throwing a big rock, so it definitely came with an opportunity cost.

I figured it might be nice to have a little reference thread for people who may have changed their Alpha names in EE, and any alts, so we know who's who.

I was Guildenstern in Alpha, still am, and now I am also Sagewine the Wizened and Pinecutter Haftwright, the dwarf who cuts wood and that is all he does.

I foolishly waited to uninstall and start downloading the fresh release until AFTER I finished working, so I've got 3 more hours of downloading to go. Am I missing the party?

I know from personal experience that wearing chainmail is much easier and can be done much longer than carrying chainmail.

Thinking about what I want to do when EE rolls around and I start making a new character from scratch, and I'm wondering what everyone's opinion is on diversification or specialization.

Specifically, I plan to have one Destiny's Twin being pretty much a dedicated crafter, and even with a dedicated crafter there's a diversification/specialization question (should I just put ALL my points in Sawyer and be the first one in the game to be able to provide bow-making refined materials, for example). And my other character would be the hunter/gatherer/delivery person, and likely also the one that would engage in any tower capturing or guild wars or dungeon delving or whatever I might try during the game.

The question is, should I figure out a build that best optimizes encumbrance and gathering and all that stuff, or should I learn both low-encumbrance wizard or scout or merchant gear and have alternate more heavily-armed and armored loadouts for war? Will that leave me spread too thin, or is it a viable option in this game without being significantly underpowered?

Or do I need to play the lottery so I can buy like 5 different accounts?

Semi-related question: are the Encumbrance feats implemented yet, and who trains them?

I have filled all starter town auction houses with Sspitfire's stuff and created searchable listings at The Crusader Road Post Dispatch.

Also, last I checked, the 166 listings of recipes (many provided by Danielle from the Callambea Library) at Thornkeep were down to about 80.

So now you should be able to find starter equipment (and some not-so-starter equipment) at Marchmont, Ossian's Crossing, Rathglen, and Kindleburn.

I've just put 166 recipes on the Thornkeep Auction House. 1 copper each. These are from Sspitfire's stash and the Callambea Library donated by Danielle, as well as donations from various people and some that I found as well. The full list (in screenshot form) is here: crpd.gibbermouth.com/2014/11/04/thornkeep-library-opens-for-business/

Just stocked the Marchmont Auction House with many of the items from Sspitfire's stash at 1c for everything. Going to attempt to stock other starter town AHs as well, and fill the Thornkeep one with recipes. Full list of items at crpd.gibbermouth.com.

So I set up an in-character "newspaper" with a searchable Trading Post section called The Crusader Road Post Dispatch at http://crpd.gibbermouth.com. My plan in the future (some time into EE) is to try to turn this into an in-game business, ie, charge people a small amount in-game to post items for barter or sale. Feedback appreciated. It's still very new and all that, but it should be functional.

Polearms! Pikemen! Is this something we'll see in formation combat? Shield walls? Bonuses for everyone using the same weapon?

Because I added a buffer for add-ons, but exactly which ones I go with would be better informed by what titles come with the regional trait packages, that sort of thing.

So since the content is going to be character-driven in this game, I thought what I might like doing as a player is to carve a niche for myself trying to create some kind of in-game publication letting people know what's going on, who's at war, that sort of thing. What do you guys think of the idea? Would you spend a copper or two on that?

Could also have classified ads of some sort, maybe even advertising (for in-game money) for guilds, settlements, taverns, craftsmen, that sort of thing.

Anyone interested in the idea, possibly being a fellow reporter, let's talk sometime before the game starts. Also, anyone running guilds and stuff like that, it would help me a lot to know who you are and what's going on with your guilds.

I've seen some people talking about adding money to their pledges to get additional Adventurer accounts. But I'm not seeing that on the add-on list... is that a thing one can do?

So I would really like all the daily deals, and I don't have $1000 to spend to get them, and I contributed to this Kickstarter as soon as I found out it existed, on the 23rd. Anyone want to help me out? I mean, where will I be without an Old One Idol?

I think it would be cool if in addition to guilds, you could be a part of a secret society. It would be separate from guilds, and people wouldn't be able to tell you were in the secret society unless you showed them an item, like a ring or letter or other identifier, or if they found that item on your body. I think it would add a level of intrigue to the game and wouldn't be too difficult to implement. What do you all think of the idea?

I wrote up a little piece about how Pathfinder Online managed to get me, an underpaid freelance worker with an unsteady income and an entertainment budget of $0, to pledge $175 on a Kickstarter for a video game.

Article

I'm grateful to Fear the Boot for publishing it on their website. You'll also find an interview with Mark Kalmes there on PFO, both audio and a transcript I provided.

This is a transcript of Mark Kalmes's interview on Fear the Boot discussing Pathfinder Online, for those who prefer to read it. It's got a lot of interesting info and paints a pretty good picture of what the developers are going for with the game (and convinced me to back the Kickstarter).

Part 1: http://subscriptorium.com/741/2samples/1ftb
Part 2: http://subscriptorium.com/753/2samples/1ftb