Grotnar's page

There a couple of Avellone interviews out there that I didn't see listed.

From the Shane Plays radio show that aired this Saturday
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bmZITohjr_M

From Constantly Calibrating Podcast
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fGhPO8AeuFE

From LoneVaultWanderer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8XoDUs7l7k

There are probably more, seems he has done a ton lately. Well, not just lately, Avellone is probably the most interviewed game dev of all time. But these directly relate to Kingmaker.

Anyway, not a lot of new info here, but I didn't see them listed in the most recent megapost. Sorry if they are there and I missed em, lotta info there.

Just a reminder, this kickstarter is in it's final 3 days. The next stretch goal may be of some interest to table top gamers. They will have Wolfgang Bauer, Sean K. Reynolds, and Bruce Cordell each design a dungeon. If you're interested in an old school dungeon crawler, give it a look. Also. company has a track record, they have already released Wasteland 2, and are working on a sequel to Planescape:torment. Anyway, give it a look, the $25 tier seems like a pretty good deal.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/inxile/the-bards-tale-iv/description

Don't forget Might and Magic X.

Yes. It works as you think it does. You just need a mini hdmi cable. They are a few dollars. Not sure about remotes, I have just used the display in the past.

Is it possible to pledge on kickstarter without a credit card? Say, with paypal?

You can't pledge through kickstarter without a credit card. However you can make a paypal pledge at the following link.

https://torment.inxile-entertainment.com/store

I was just reading an interview with Obsidian Entertainment head Feargus Urguhart. He was asked about kickstarter and future of the company, etc, and in he answer he says," I want to hook up with the Pathfinder guys and see about doing a Pathfinder Eternity world book thing."

So a print product rather than a video game, but seeing Obsidian and Pathfinder in the same sentence, gets me a little excited. Maybe this could lead to a video game in the future.

Any thoughts on this?

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2013/02/16/obsidian-on-project-eternity-kic kstarters-future/

The TSR folk have said there was no connection. They were as surprised as anyone else when KQ made their announcement. But they decided to contact Wolfgang and he agreed. In fact this is one of several reasons mentioned for the somewhat late release.

I don't know if this has been mentioned elsewhere, but on the latest episode of the Save or Die Podcast, TSR Art Director Jim Wampler said the magazine would have a section called Kobold Corner by Wolfgang Baur.

They didn't much info, but it certainly sounds like good news. Anyone else have additional information?

This is more about watch my movie, buy my book, watch my tv show, listen to my radio show, etc. It's marketing folks. Plain and simple.

A wise man once said, there is a sucker born every minute.

What did it mean when the American punks said "With just a touch of my burning hand, I send my astro zombies to rape the land, prime directive: exterminate the whole human race"?

Oh, that's just Glen Danzig being Glen Danzig, as front man for the misfits. Horror punk! Great song though.

I agree that it is a flawed argument for publishers to think that every illegal download or case of copyright infringement is a lost sale. There are certainly people who are collectors who will download any rpg pdf just to be complete, or any other number of reasons.

By the same token it's also flawed to believe that it is just free advertising, and people will become paying customers after checking out the material. There are plenty of people, who will never pay for something they can get for free, no matter how much they love the product.

The problem is that we don't have good numbers on the conversion rate of people who download the torrent, like the product and then become paying customers, and the people who download the product, like it, and continue to pay nothing. I'm sure if there were good numbers, and it made some sense we would see a different stance or different business models for this. Remember companies want to make money and if it made sense they may feel different about it.

Also remember the rpg industry is a small niche industry. It takes a much smaller amount of lost sale to effect them.

So we can make arguments for each side, but we don't have the numbers to really say one way or the other.

While I know there's a lot to be determined about this, I'm very excited. My biggest question is simply, is there a rough timeline on when this would be out? I'm not looking for anything concrete, but are we talking 2012, 2013, 2014, or is it too early (and too many failed attempts by others) to even put a year on when this will be ready for public use?

From Gary's presentation notes earlier in the thread.

When can I use it.

It's not quite ready yet. Don't worry, we're not going to wait until it's perfect. It turns out, software is never perfect.
So you'll be able to play with Paizo Game Space sometime this summer. And we'll keep making it better as we go.

So let me get this right..the VTT is real time?..in which case it won't be much use for the PbP's here as they tend to span continents and many many time zones.

I do worry sometimes about Paizo's explosion of diversification this year..it reminds me of a certain company once based in Lake Geneva Michigan

Isn't Lake Geneva in Wisconsin? And, I don't think they are doing away with the pbp forums. At least they haven't said that. They are 2 different types of games, and I would think they want to have both of them popular. More players=more sales. Doesn't matter how they play.

Hmm. I guess I could just post the working script for my presentation, that way everybody's on the same page and we won't be playing a game of "telephone" to figure out what exactly we announced.

Please do.

I find this to be pretty exciting news. Did I read somewhere that the initial rollout will be this summer?

brad2411 wrote:

They are announcing everything on there Facebook page which is awesome!

meh, never liked facebook. Will have to wait till one of you nice peeps post it up here on the forums. :)

You don't have to sign up for facebook or anything. You can just read the announcements as they post them.

Anyway, something about a virtual table top is the last one.

Paizo reinvents the virtual tabletop to be played directly on Paizo.com!

Uses Paizo's high, max resolution maps, handouts and everything you need to run our APs. Makes everything easy to connect with people and get playing. As long as you can get to Paizo.com you can play!

I look forward to the Know Direction interview. Ryan. and Perram do a good job with their interviews. I'm not much of a comic book reader these days, but this may tempt me.

We're bringing a bunch down from Canada - about 175 figures. We do have a few good ones - including an Aspect of Tiamat...

Sunday afternoon in the bar area?

I need Aspect of Tiamat! Unfortunately I won't be there. Darn it!

OD&D refers to Original Dungeons and Dragons. We're talking about the white box set with 3 brownish booklets released in 1974. There are several clones of this system out there.

My understanding is that Champions of Zed is a re editing of the original books with extra material added based on notes, message board posts and other material from Gygax and Arneson. Also including material from other wargames of the time, as the original edition assumed you had access to several other games, and referred to them in the text.

No kidding Bill. None of the higher level goals (apart from the 10k) actually seem to have increased their backers however... Is it all from the 10k goal person? Can you even tell that?

I'm pretty sure they can. Every time someone pledges, or changes their pledge, or cancels, etc. I think they are alerted by email.

Wow. Some big money must have come in. Seems like almost 30k in the last day or so, and only about 10 new backers or so?

Anyway, let's keep going. The higher this gets, the more tempted I am getting to increase my pledge. Only at $100 right now, but the $250 is starting to look pretty good.

I can't afford to pledge enough to get the printed version, so I'm sadly gonna miss out on the dungeon levels by Jason Bulmahn, James Jacobs, and Erik Mona, but getting the dungeon from Ed Greenwood would be completely amazing.

[EDIT]

If I wanted to update my pledge to something higher, would I have to pay the higher amount, plus what I originally pledged or would it only charge me for the difference?

Should just be the difference. If you pledged $15, just raise the amount to $50, and when the product funds you should be charged $50.

Vic Wertz wrote:

Lily Orlovsky wrote:

I gave a donation too! How do we go about getting our "Goblin Squad" status?

After the Kickstarter closes, Amazon payments will process the actual payments; they tell us that can take up to two weeks as they retry cards that fail and such. Once we have a list of the people whose pledges were successfully charged, we'll connect it all up!

Awesome! Thanks for the reply! And how soon after that can we expect to receive the Thornkeep book? (Not trying to sound impatient, just excited! :D)

Not sure if it's 100% accurate, but the estimated delivery says October 2012.

Yeah. I think you were a bad guest. The fact that you forgot all these things multiple times doesn't really matter. Your intention doesn't matter. The end result is the same, you ate a bunch of free pizza, drank milk that you were told not to, and used words you were told not to. Your reason is that you forgot. Fine, that's enough, your forgetfulness has made you a bad guest. I personally would have made it more clear before booting you, but maybe they had other reasons than those listed, and this just made it easier.

I do find it kind of annoying though, that you come here and ask for opinions, then when people give them, you tell them they are wrong. If you have already made you mind up, and people who disagree are wrong, why are you asking for opinions at all? Seems like you already have your answer.

42 may be the answer for everything, but I'd expect a pdf price in the range of 34.99 - 39.99. The original campaign setting book has a premium pdf price (of 34.99) and I'd expect this one to carry a price close to that.

Sure. I was just guessing based off of pricing in the past. They very well could set a lower price point. Do note that the original campaign setting book was $49.99($50) retail. So the $34.99 pdf follows the 70% model. This one is a little different as it is $59.99. I don't think they have any other $60 books. So that is where I came up with the $42. Again they may well decide to price it differently. Just wanted to point out that the campaign setting book did follow the 70% pricing model.

PDF prices for the non core books has usually been about 70% of the print version. So about $42 if it holds true for this book.

Dave Gross has just signed on as lead writer.

http://www.baldursgate.com/news/2012/04/26/announcing-dave-gross-as-lead-wr iter-for-baldurs-gate-enhanced-edition/

Dream Daemon wrote:

Whilst you could possibly complete the Black Fang adventure in 2 hours, I think it will feel rushed and you would be better served taking your time with it. I would suggest doing the shorter 1-hour adventures. Out of the four, my favourites were Ruins and Terrors.

Hope you have fun.

Where are these "other" four adventures? I bought the BB and only see the solo adventure and the black fang one.

Thanks,

+J

You can download them here, http://paizo.com/beginnerbox . Along with some other free resources.

The Rune Giant is going to be Colossal!?!?! Awesome!

I don't know if anyone has ever done this with Pathfinder rules, though it has been done with 3.5.

Check out http://www.heroicfantasygames.com/ . They have a game called Knights of the Chalice, which is based on 3.5 rules, and uses the OGL. It is an indie game, and has been around for a number of years. They do not appear the have any legal issues.

They also address changes to the rules to make it work as a crpg.

Anyone notice that the base for the dragon is slightly bigger than DDM huge minis. Same thing with the large minis, slightly bigger than DDM. It's not by a large amount but it is pretty noticeable. It's not a big deal, just wondering, was it intentional?

I've finally opened my case. I'll post a break down soon if I get the time. I did get a full set. Lotsa good stuff in here, but also other things that are not great. Overall, it's a pretty good set.

As far as packaging goes, my boxes were not taped, with the exception of the dragon, which is the only one that does not need to be taped.

As a side note, love the goblins, I got 8 or so. Good first effort, though, I expect the Rise of the Runelords set to raise the bar.

Grotnar wrote:

Question for people who already have their minis, did you use an express shipping method?

I had the standard shipping method, which is why I was surprised to see them so soon. After all, for the last three months, my physical copies of subscriptions arrived days after they were out in stores.

Mine arrived today. But I had them shipped to alternative address so I won't be able to get my hands on them until tomorrow. Had I known they would arrive on a Saturday I would have had them shipped here. Darn.

Anyway, I chose the cheapest shipping as well and this is much faster than my normal subscription shipments.

Question for people who already have their minis, did you use an express shipping method?

Ok, I have subscribed. Please convert my existing preorder to the subscription. Make sure you include the huge black dragon case premium order as well. I look forward to getting my case and black dragon soon. Just to clarify 1 full case, and 1 black dragon is what I should get, and should now be a subscriber.

Thanks in advance.

Hey Adam, if it means anything I don't think your posts have been over the line at all. I think some people might have taken offense at "nerd tax". But I'm just guessing, I have no problem with anything you have written.

As far as PDF pricing goes, there are a couple of things to consider. When the core rulebook was released D&D 4e had already been out for a year. Some people had already switched to 4e, some people had stayed with 3.5. Of the people who stayed with 3.5, some were definitely going to switch to Pathfinder, some were on the fence, and some were just going to stick with 3.5. Why buy a new $50 book to play the same game I've already been playing and own hundreds of dollars of books for? There were also some people who had switched to 4e who were not satisfied with it. Paizo was really targeting all these people. There are a lot of people who won't throw down $50 for a book, or even $35 for a pdf of something they might not like. But a lot of people will pay $10 for something, just to check it out. So you can think of it as an introductory offer.

This brings up another reason for the pricing. I'm going on memory here and someone can correct me if I'm wrong. But I remember either reading here or hearing on a podcast with a Paizo staffer(probably Mona), that it was also meant to drive print sales. Someone checks out the $10 pdf and likes it, and a certain % of those people who would have never bought the $50 dollar book, go ahead and buy the print version after checking out the cheap pdf. I can only guess this model was successful, because they continue to price rulebook pdfs like that.

Anyway, I hear what you are saying, but I fear the alternative isn't lowering the price of the smaller pdfs. It would be raising the price of the larger pdfs to say $35. So, for me I'm glad that the major books are priced as they are.

I have a case preordered and I want to subscribe. I intended to, but I think I preordered the case before the subscription offer was available, and never got around to subscribing. My question, is it ok to subscribe now? Or should I wait for my case to ship, or for the new set to be available for preorder? I don't want to accidentally order a second case.

Thanks in advance.

Yay! I was really worried we were not gonna hit 12.5k.

Question, Bosun level will get print versions of everything, they will also get pdf of everything?

Just signed up. Current funding is at $9760 with about a week to go. This is the first kickstarter I've ever backed. I'm very excited to watch the design process.

Now, let's reach 10k!

flash_cxxi wrote:

I played for 3 hours and got my Character to level 2 (almost 3).

Holy smokes, that's slow. After 3 hours you should be at level 5, easy. Probably closer to 7 or 8.

I mean, you can, like, auto-attack kobolds for three hours and be higher than level 2.

Quote:

And I was only playing 5-10 hours a week in my hey day (I could manage nowhere near that now). So you're saying that the later levels are as easy to do as the earlier ones? I'd get to level 85 in no time at all soloing the easy quests on that little time?

No, the later levels take dramatically longer than the earlier ones.

But WoW is built to be soloable all the way to the top. Dungeons and group quests are non-essential. You might have to ignore a handful of group quests along the way, but your progress will not be impeded. There will be plenty of solo quests for you to complete, all the way to 85. That's how most people do it, their first time through.

This is true. And it seems it has become even more soloable as time has passed. I bought the Cataclysm expansion when it came out. I hadn't played in so long that I started a new character just so I could learn the basics again. I leveled 1 character to 85 and 3 others to around 30. This took 3-4 months. I'm sure some people would consider this slow. I am not an optimal player. I would waste time doing things that were not the most efficient use of my time, doing gray quests, auction house stuff, etc. Also note that my play was pretty erratic. I might play 2 hours a night 4 or 5 days in a row, then not play for a week. Or I might play 4-5 hours on Saturday and Sunday, then not play for a week, etc. There may have been a group or 2 in there, but pretty much all solo.

So it is definitely even easier to level in WoW than it has ever been before. Though the early levels have always been pretty easy.

Mothman wrote:

Grotnar wrote:

If there isn't balance most people will choose the most powerful character builds. Simple as that, people like to win.

Like I said, I’m not very familiar with MMOs ... but in arguably every previous edition of D&D and now Pathfinder, the general consensus has been that the classes haven’t been perfectly (or at all) balanced against each other. Yet over all editions you see a broad spread of classes being played, some are more popular than others sure, but for example you don’t see everyone or even most people playing wizards and no one playing martial classes despite it being generally held that wizard is the far superior class.

I’m wondering why it is so different for MMOs?

Because if one choice is better than another choice, anyone looking to tackle the most difficult content in the game has a vested interest in fleshing his group out with the most effective additions possible. This, in turn, will lead to more action for those who chose the best character options, which will in turn lead to more people choosing those character options. Eventually the community will develop a consensus on the best choices, and very few players will deviate substantially from these accepted combinations, especially at the highest tiers of play.

The better balanced the game is, the less you will have to worry about disparities in build popularity.

When you're in a tabletop group, it's fine to play something suboptimal because the rest of your group does not have the luxury of picking their teammates from hundreds of other people. When you're in an MMO, you do have that luxury. And if it turns out that your chances of success go from 70% to 90% if you just trade out the guy with the lute for the guy with the battleaxe, that's some pretty good incentive.

I cannot stress this enough: Tabletop games and video games (of any kind) are very different beasts, and what works in one may not (and probably won't) work in the other. To boot, MMO games and...

Thanks, said better than me. There are many other reasons, and one can go much deeper. But this is a good start.

Grotnar wrote:

If there isn't balance most people will choose the most powerful character builds. Simple as that, people like to win.

Like I said, I’m not very familiar with MMOs ... but in arguably every previous edition of D&D and now Pathfinder, the general consensus has been that the classes haven’t been perfectly (or at all) balanced against each other. Yet over all editions you see a broad spread of classes being played, some are more popular than others sure, but for example you don’t see everyone or even most people playing wizards and no one playing martial classes despite it being generally held that wizard is the far superior class.

I’m wondering why it is so different for MMOs?

The same people who play MMOs are not always the same people who play tabletop games. There is some crossover, but I would guess most don't. They are different games. And when you have thousands of players playing in the same world, things are different. It's not like playing at the table with five friends.

This is a huge topic. Someone could write dissertation on it, and I'm sure some have.

If there isn't balance most people will choose the most powerful character builds. Simple as that, people like to win.

Are all players going to exist in the same world? Or will it be split into different servers/shards? If all players are in the same world, will they truly be in the same world, or are we looking at heavy instancing?

Also, Mr. Dancey responded to a question about crafting, that one would not have to click thousands of times for skill increases. How are skill increases going to work? Is it like Eve Online, where one selects certain skills and they increase over time whether you are playing or not?

Is it me, or do the few details we have seem like a fantasy version of Eve Online? Not that there is anything wrong with that, my experience with Eve Online is minimal, played the free trial a bit.

Anyway, looking forward to future developments.

My guess would be epic/mythic rules, or maybe plans for more pawns. Though seems a little bit early to have the pawn plans finalized. Neither would be HUGE for me, but both would be cool.

Outside of that, maybe a Pathfinder video game. Though it doesn't seem like enough lead in time either, just going by the last time Lisa or someone said they had not been approached by a game publisher that meets their criteria. Seems like just a few months ago. Though, maybe a smart phone, tablet game? Other than that, maybe a pathfinder graphic novel?

I dunno, most likely to me seems epic/mythic rules.

Pathfinder seems to be getting mentioned a lot in podcasts and other media.

The latest episode of "Roll For Initiative" podcast, "Issue 68 Adventures Dark and Deep", mention Paizo and the Beginner Box in the last 5 mins or so. There is much love. This is a podcast about 1st edition AD&D. This episode specifically is about an AD&D retro clone, Adventures Dark & Deep.

http://rollforinitiative.libsyn.com/

Also a mention of Pathfinder on "The Spoony Experiment". This is a video cast, and the latest episode is about getting started playing rpgs. He talks about Pathfinder at around the 11:15 mark, and displays the core rulebook. He has good things to say, and calls it "one of the best games out there." He also calls out Carrion Crown and Kingmaker. But as this is an episode about getting started with rpgs, he seems unaware of the Beginner Box. Seems like he might be someone who should get a review copy. Also, he mentions D&D Encounters, but no mention of Pathfinder Society.

http://spoonyexperiment.com/

Steel_Wind wrote:

Blizzard does not put out AAA games -- they put out AAAA games. They are the exception to the rule and their titles are still stocked on the shelf NIB ten years after release. Their exceptional status goes beyond all rules which otherwise plainly apply in the industry.

If you say so.

I think that making up new rankings in order to justify calling something an exception is probably a little weak, though.

Quote:

I would note, however, that Diablo 3 is not a PC only game; it's cross-platform.

No, it's not. Blizzard has discussed the possibility of bringing D3 to consoles, but nothing has been announced. It was originally conceived of as a PC-only game, and it is, as of now, a PC- (and Mac-) only game.

True. But they have a team already working on it. And though they have not officially announced it, they are talking about it. Enough that at Blizzcon, game director Jay Wilson said, "The movement actually feels better on the controller,". So, I would say chances are very strong. Also note that the original Diablo eventually was ported to Playstation.

So, at the very least they are spending money on a console version.