VestOfHolding's page

Hi, member of the wiki team and contributor to the mapping project here, though I'm only speaking for myself in this post.

In our efforts to create the interactive global map of Golarion, we've done our best, given all published maps and other information, to make it as accurate as possible. Though, it is a fictional world that can and has been updated sometimes. This means that it's never going to be as scientific and static as the real world.

As far as those land-area figures, what you're seeing is that the mapping software we use is able calculate the amount of land within certain polygons, such as nation borders, for us. Would I necessarily trust it down the the single digits? Given that it's a fictional world where borders can always slightly be in flux depending on the artist creating the next map, no.

However, it's a fun bit of trivia to still get a rough idea of the sizes of places as currently laid out, and their relative sizes to each other.

Due to the amount of complaints on here, I feel like I'm missing something....

The current Paizo Advantage requires 4 subscriptions to get you 15% off of most things, upcoming Paizo Plus gives you 15% off of most things assuming you spend enough in a year which looks like if you subscribe to 4 things (minimum required for current Paizo Advantage) you reach that dollar amount.
Is it that people are subscribed to the 4 cheapest subscriptions (based on annual cost) so now they'll be getting less?

Current Paizo Advantage automatically gets you PFS or SFS scenarios for free, upcoming Paizo Plus gets you enough Gold to get them for free (but now you'll have to add them yourselves) but also gives you the option to buy other stuff instead.
Yeah, okay, having to manually cash in gold to get the scenarios is an inconvenience, but if allows you to get other products instead of scenarios (if you don't use the scenarios this looks flat-out better).

What am I missing?

Yeah, this is my read of things too. I'm really confused by people kicking up such a fuss over having to manually get society scenarios each month in exchange for getting the choice to use that discount on anything, not just scenarios. Sounds like a win for everyone by giving us all more options, but in particular those of us that don't play much society.

Looking forward to the new store page?

I'm confused by the people who have a problem with transitioning from the free scenarios to the gold that is enough to get those scenarios anyway. Specifically if the only criticism is the loss of that automation. An extra step is added there, but now we get to spend that gold on discounts for whatever else we want. Pretty easy net positive! And an extra net positive for those of us that unfortunately don't get much mileage out of society scenarios.

I recently made a remastered alchemy guide.

Unstable Reactions: A Remastered Alchemy Guide

When convenient, would you add it to the list?

Thank You

Not gonna lie, I'm in a really sensitive emotional place right now, and I cried happy tears when I recognized some of the template ideas I wrote years ago in this brand new guide. Really appreciate knowing that people still find some of my proposals helpful. Also, really love the invisible tables (or maybe just prudent tabbing) you used to add great formatting to the item sections.

The idea that getting pdf early would cut into the sales of books is nonsensical. They are not the same products at all.

Paizo reps have responded to this point at length in the past, as QuidEst said. Just because you don't have all the information, or don't accept it, doesn't make it nonsensical.

Mark Moreland wrote:

As you mention, Archives of Nethys has a commercial license to operate and maintain a rules reference for the community, and part of this change is to ensure that that license (and those of other partners) actually means something, because someone else can't end-around that license by combining the OGL/ORC with the Community Use Policy and do the exact same thing.

So this confirms the intent, any open-source, community-driven alternatives to AoN, Demiplane, etcetera can no longer contain any of Paizo's IP, not even proper nouns (and thus having to muddle their accuracy to the actual rule books). No true-to-form competitors can rise without explicit permission from Paizo.

Glad to have that settled and put those projects in the past.

I mean....correct? Let's be really clear here: Those projects operate under a license from Paizo in order to do what they do. That's not changing. If you're so worried about not getting to use proper nouns, I'd point you to Pathbuilder's success, which otherwise gets to say "Gunslinger" under the right license no problem, just not other Golarion-specific nouns.

So the answer really is "we want the 1e community to stop existing."

Or, and stay with me on this one, Mark was being completely honest and transparent about the fact that nothing about Paizo's existence can any longer afford to depend on Hasbro's good graces to continue existing, and they would never survive a legal challenge from them.

Y'all, I get that there can be uncertainty and confusion around something like a licensing change, but if you've been a fan of Paizo's work for this many years and still think they'd come at this in bad faith that deserves these kind of rude comments, then I don't know what reality you're living in.

Expressing concern and pointing out what types of projects may have fallen through the cracks is one thing. Throwing up your hands and saying "Wow, Paizo just did what was easiest for them and decided they don't care about us anymore" is wildly another.

@Dmurnett: I feel like Paizo has more than earned the benefit of the doubt at this point that they put more thought into this than "it's inconvenient for us". Let's see how the FAQ and whatnot continue to evolve over the coming days and let other people with more direct stakes ask their questions.

It's insane to me that even the drawn-on walls and doors look gorgeous in how sharp and clear they are. I'd be curious to know how they do the doors at least. I imagine a stencil along with a way to align it really well.

Oh no, please let this thread die. The necro wasn't needed, lol.

Very much looking forward to what the different mythic destinies entail. I hope Paizo took a cue from Owlcat and made them more flavorful than the 1e paths.

I'm surprised that an adventure involving the emergence of a new deity is for 1st-level adventurers. Will be curious to see how this is written.

At first my eyes glazed right over the "Remaster" part of the thread post, and I was ready to be all, "Hope you're sitting down and comfortable, because it all started in the Age of Creation....", lol.

The story for this sounds fantastic! Very excited to get it and read more details.

I'm really excited to see more creatures get new lore and abilities based on the original sources. Yet another reason Paizo is awesome with how much they want to put effort into respecting the origins more.

Amazing job on that data gathering, Brinebeast!

Newdragonsnewdragonnewdragonsnewdragonsnewdagrons!!!

I'm excite.

I'm not going to reply directly to this tone-policing but personally I don't think you can square the circle of "game that can stand on its own" and "100% compatible with Pathfinder 2e" without compromising something that will leave me saying "that's a great campaign setting splat, but it's missing what made Starfinder 1e unique".

Anyways, like I said, look forward to your playtest. Not really impressed by the SF hack for PF2e though. If that's all it is, I'll just keep my PF2e rules and use the SRD material.

TIL that someone saying "Hey buddy, back up a bit and remember you're talking to human people that you're making weird assumptions about" is tone policing instead of just normal reminding not to be rude.

thejeff wrote:

But the two can't mesh. If I want people to be able to use it on Infinite and beyond, that's not an option right?

Correct. Infinite has the same exclusivity clause that's present in all of DTRPG's community content programs.

While Mark has already answered this question, I really really hope this sinks in for people: This isn't new with the coming of ORC. This is how Infinite has worked.

Came here out of curiosity to see what caused the necro'd product thread. Left with fun random bits of Paizo history from James Jacobs. Hells yes.

zimmerwald1915 wrote:

keftiu wrote:

PFS #4-13 is out, featuring a Segada-sanctioned expedition into the continent's northern interior prairies - and it's pretty neat! You're working to repair and repatriate a star gun that Chelish invaders broke after stealing, which is a lovely anti-colonial narrative that still ends up feeling like a fantastical quest. Well worth picking up!

There's some fascinating new lore on both star guns and the Syrinx people, neither of which I want to spoil, and the town that receives the relic (Niishan) ends up potentially hosting a second Arcadian PFS Lodge (after Port Valen in the north).

It seems plans for the continent are absolutely in motion, and I'm very excited about it all...

Is there a map?

Yes, but there’s not much to see; it’s zoomed-in on north-central Arcadia, with Lake Starfall and Niishan both labeled, nothing else.

Replying to this older post because I wanted to say that I just recently discovered this scenario and a second one that both feature Niishan, but there are no wiki pages for Niishan or Lake Starfall. These are now on my radar to add both to the wiki and the interactive map.

In general, locations that only appear in society scenarios are my big weakness, so feel free to reach out to me with any similarly missing locations from the map.

I just want to say: Thank you James Jacobs for the absolute treasure trove of information in this thread about the thoughts/inspirations/general origins of so many figures and places that you've discussed in this thread. I am so here for it, and hope there will be more! Sadly I'm way too scatter-brained right now to think of my own questions, but my favorite is hearing about the more obscure sources that I had no idea about, like Nocticula.

Hey folks, thanks for the feedback!

Apologies that it's been so long since I've provided a summary of the changes. Let's see how well I can summarize the last few months, because we've actually had some big changes going on!

The biggest announcement is that we are now working with a much higher resolution version of the 2E global map and World Guide metaregion maps, which has enabled us to do a lot of great things, including way more river details!

* The entire planet has undergone latlong shifts as we aligned the map with the 2E global map that even listed what type of projection it was in. Massive shoutout to Virenerus for knowing how to do that vertex bending, and having a bot go through and auto-update as many latlongs as the bot could detect on the wiki. Thank you Garrett for catching some in the Shackles that weren't caught by that bot. At least now you know why they were off at all, lol.
* The terrain for the Isle of Kortos, Mwangi Expanse, Holomog, Sarkoris Scar, and the River Kingdoms have received noticeable updates.
* Across the globe there are additional rivers and river details.
* Sarusan, Casmaron, and southern Garund have received massive terrain updates, most easily seen with all the additional forest spots dotted everywhere. By that same metric, you can see I haven't gotten very far into Arcadia yet, but that's my current task.
* The Crown of the World has undergone a lot of subtle changes, and the challenge now is definitely trying to slowly re-incorporate the old Jade Regent map into this modern one, because there's a lot that doesn't quite line up, but I am sad to lose the locations that that Jade Regent map had. So I'll be slowly trying to solve that puzzle.
* Northern Avistan and Tian Xia still need a little subtle bending to perfectly match the global map, but after I finish on the rest of the planet, I'll return back to the Inner Sea and Tian Xia to do similar terrain updates as applicable.

The number of bullet points doesn't feel like it conveys just how much work has happened in July, but oh man shifting and warping the entire planet by like, up to 10 degrees, while minimizing the user impact of that, and also doing terrain detailing on the entire globe, has been so much work, but very rewarding to see the results so far.

The Paizo forums aren't really the best place to be leaving reviews of the game, but I'll say this: Obviously it's not Paizo's fault that the game seems pretty lacking at launch, they just agreed to the use of the IP.

I'll only say two things about the game itself:
1. The game really doesn't lean into the IP enough to justify them having spent the resources on getting it. That's something that can hopefully be updated before it's out of Early Access.
2. As an Early Access game, the standards of judging it are different. However, even at that different standard, I feel that a game like this still needs to show the really solid foundation it has that will be further built on before its official release. I'm....not really seeing that here.

Either way, looking forward to hopefully more Piazo-IP-based video games in different genres so that different people can have a way to engage with the great worlds Paizo has built.

It's really not what we all need in our lives. Good for them getting their product kickstarted. Not for me. I find this anime archetype to just be off-putting and boring.

Excited that mythic rules are coming in addition to these classes! I hope they're a lot more flavorful than the 1e rules, like what Owlcat ended up doing with their take on the mythic paths.

So glad for Paizo apparel again, especially with the promise of more designs in the future!

Yeah, Dahak is depicted as a dark red dragon. Also definitely lots of spikes. The 1e campaign setting book, Inner Sea Faiths, alone has like three pictures of him. There might be a depiction of him in Age of Ashes somewhere.

Looking forward to this! I'm glad Paizo is willing to hand out licenses to studios that have ideas for more than just CRPGs, just to have more ways different people with different tastes can experience the IP.

FYI, I checked with Thurston and can confirm that a deity's status in Starfinder has no bearing on the likelihood of their death in Pathfinder. :)

I knew it! Very curious how the poll would turn out with everyone keeping that in mind. I may have to see if I can convince people to do the poll again in 3 or 4 months with that quote as header text, lol.

Hey folks, I made a ranked-choice poll based on this topic, and it would be great to have some people here fill it out to get more results!

Here's the poll.

EDIT: Fixed the link being wrong.

Damn, and here I made the mistake of coming on to the forums and thinking I found an interesting topic without people being jerks.

@Themetricsystem: Hi, I'm not a part of that group, but I agree in this case that I don't see why it's such a big deal to just respect the wishes of the devs. It's not that much effort. This weird attitude of not wanting to respect the devs is one of the reasons I don't like coming on here. Off I go to regret trying again in a week probably.

He's pretty out of touch and one wonders how often he plays the game he works on.

Yikes! Of course he does. This type of toxicity towards the devs, and I'm concerned the tone of this thread as a whole, is why we can't have nice things.

Exciting to see my product in a Paizo blog!! And congrats to all my fellow Infinite creators who did really well in June too!

These are fantastic. +1 to continuing blog posts like this!

I want it. IWantItIWantItIWantIt. :D

Also, @Erik Mona: Hells yes to map making. Excited to incorporate it into the interactive map sometime in the future. Also I can definitely shift my wiki work over to trying to find every scrape of Casmaroon lore and at least making sure at the bottom of the relevant pages is the full list of every book that's a reasonable source, even if all the info from them isn't fully on the page yet. In general it's been frequently my mindset to prioritize grabbing a couple lines from every source I can find over grabbing every bit of info from that. My thinking is that it might help people to know every book to look in for situations like this, so I can do that to a lot more pages faster.

Wouldn't mind if this is a half-decent excuse for getting feedback from you on if this thinking makes sense for when Paizo devs use the wiki for reference.

To this end, I've added a Casmaron navbox to the wiki and relevant pages, as well as adding more references to many of the pages.

I want it. IWantItIWantItIWantIt. :D

Also, @Erik Mona: Hells yes to map making. Excited to incorporate it into the interactive map sometime in the future. Also I can definitely shift my wiki work over to trying to find every scrape of Casmaroon lore and at least making sure at the bottom of the relevant pages is the full list of every book that's a reasonable source, even if all the info from them isn't fully on the page yet. In general it's been frequently my mindset to prioritize grabbing a couple lines from every source I can find over grabbing every bit of info from that. My thinking is that it might help people to know every book to look in for situations like this, so I can do that to a lot more pages faster.

Wouldn't mind if this is a half-decent excuse for getting feedback from you on if this thinking makes sense for when Paizo devs use the wiki for reference.

+1 to what Seadar said. All of the yikes. I got asked recently why I pull away from these forums, so here I am, pointing out that Themetricsystem's post sets a great example of why. The topic was started, discussion was friendly, James Jacobs himself responds well with expectation setting and mentioning what solutions could be more practical to do, OP and everyone else clearly walks away from it having felt heard, people are generally understanding of each other (admittedly some don't quite seem to understand what is feasible in products like these, but James Jacobs already answered those above, so whatever), and things are fine.

And then suddenly we get an entire essay throwing all of that out the window. Holy crap.

So here I am, instead of just nopeing out of the forums for another couple days, answering the question posed to me and saying, "This. This right here."

This is fantastic. I also kind of love that it's not quite right, with them thinking that Lastwall is way up in Brevoy. Feels like they're trying to recreate a planet from hundreds, if not thousands of years ago, that they've never actually seen, lol.

That won't be done unless there's an official map that shows the boundary. We only work off of official images.

Also, oh hey! It's been a minute since I posted changes here. Definitely been a few things.

* Tian Xia given more detailed terrain, especially from that new map we got as a preview to next year's Tian Xia books.
* The entire coastline of Avistan has been gone over to be more exact and detailed.
* A lot of western and southern Avistan has been gone over to be given more detailed terrain.
* Taldor, Druma, Cheliax, and Qadira have been split to show the boundaries of their provinces.
* The county of Meratt from War for the Crown has been pinned down in Taldor and fully detailed.
* The new map of Five Kings Mountains from LO Highhelm has been fully incorporated.
* Most borders in Garund and southern Avistan have been cleaned up to perfectly align with rivers where it was clear that that was the intention.
* Smattering of misc small latlong adjustments of a few locations, and found a few missing locations in Geb that have been added.
* I don't think this has been mentioned before: The River Kingdoms have also been split into their individual nations.

Future Plans
* Continuing to refine the rest of the Avisan terrained based on the LO World Guide.
* Split more nations into their provinces that we have those maps for.
* Add the Spellscar Desert details to the Mana Wastes from Outlaws of Alkenstar. This one is weird to figure out the exact stretching/mapping the map needs since there's so little surrounding reference points, lol.
* Obviously continue integrating any future new maps that get published. The new Highhelm map really was fantastic, and almost makes up for the very strange and unhelpful map of the Lake of Mists and Veils that came in Gatewalkers.

It seems the funding for this Kickstarter project is much slower than I expected. Considering the huge successes of other Pathfinder Kickstarter projects, I thought this project will achieve the various stretch goals in no time. I wonder why Pathfinder players don't like this project. Perhaps Hack & Slash ARPG is not their liking?

Eh, less, sure, but not liking it at all? False. Not every Kickstarter needs to get five times their funding goal to be a success. This one has been successfully funded, and is about to hit their second stretch goal. They're fine, lol.