Moonbird's page

It strikes me that player interaction is the key to successful mmos:

1. PvP is a very powerful interaction: I mean I find PvP many times more engaging than PvE AI combat but pvp in context of a story where it makes sense and is not senseless otherwise as said play a fps game.
2. Trade is a very powerful interaction between players as evidenced by some of the cool stuff in EVE.
3. Groups aspect seems really core part of having fun too.

Player networks seems to be the key.

Yep, I fully agree on these points.

The designs that seem to have this potential for example:-

1) EVE = Virtual economy
2) EQN = Asset creation and purchase and the whole platform of voxel-making virtual objects building a community around that that then uses such for their own types of games or world-building. Minecraft seems to have achieved this somewhat albeit less around actual asset sales, and more around mods for private servers?
3) Shards Online = if they were successful at creating a platform with lots of scripting of Lua and admins run shards that design has potential to build a community around the game and in the game atst
4) Pathfinder Online = Virtual Economy again.

Not so sure about these points... My expectations and hopes for PFO run around playing a great PvP game oriented around Settlement Warfare* (building fortresses and strongholds, being able to defend them but also to lay siege and take them), Player vs Player combat being one aspect of that bigger fight going on. Virtual economy and associated activities (ressource gathering, crafting, building etc) IMO are supporting activities for warfare, just alongside other types of activities like level or skill advancement, diplomacy (guild or nation relationships), intelligence gathering on your foes (in-game and out-of-game) etc.

Seeya,
Moonbird

* that's another example of those "you always seem to look for your first love again thing": in this case, Shadowbane's Gameplay for me.

Wow ! What a post ! Thanks for taking the time to explain all this !

PvP is a feature, not a bug. Our target market segment expresses a preference for it. And we have built our game design around PvP. Specifically, the kind of PvP we have built our game around is Open World PvP.

(snip) But it is a desired feature for the people we are actively targeting.

You got me ! Your target is dead on my brain !!! :-) I'm in the market segment, yeah !!! This game is for me !!! And this is to say that some ppl on the forum support you fully, I think what you're building is great :-)

Personally, I think "PvP with consequences" is a better construction. At least, that's what made me embrace the PvP in PFO so wholeheartedly.

"Meaningful PvP" maybe ?

Seeya,
Moonbird

Worked for me (though I had a sliver of doubt creeping on my back).

Here's what I did:

. went here: https://www.goblinworks.com/paizo-account-link/
. clicked on the "Pledge Link Tool on paizo.com" big green button
. logged on paizo.com and on got on this page: https://secure.paizo.com/paizo/account/pledgeDrives
. I have 2 Kickstarter PFO pledges (the Online Tech Demo and the Sandbox MMO, Crowdforger Pioneer level)
. clicked on Details for the "Pathfinder Online: A Fantasy Sandbox MMO"
. entered my favorite username (Moonbird), password (won't tell) and email
. got a confirmation on screen
. then got an activation email from gwauto@goblinworks.com with an activation link
. clicked on the link
. got a page confirming the account was activated (displayed on a blue background), but allowing me either to register a new account or log in (that's where that sliver of doubt crept in: why could I register a new account just after activating it ?)
. logged in with my new account
-> TADA ! it worked !
. and got a page saying I was signed up for Early Enrollment (no other details).

Seeya,
Moonbird

Nihimon wrote:

Forgive my utter ignorance of French Popular Culture, but do French fantasy novels exist? If they do, do they refer to distances in the metric system?

Honestly, Fantasy Novel are considered a geek thing in France, we don't have a Fantasy tradition, like england.

(...)

Fantasy readers are more common now, since LOTRO movies (Nobody knew Tolkien before that), we ain't outcast anymore, and yes, fantasy novels (well, translations of : We have ZERO reknown french fantasy authors) uses the old system mostly.

Please allow me to correct you slightly: I agree we don't have a fantasy tradition as in England and the US, and our authors of renown in imaginary literature are more SF oriented, but we do have some French authors of fantasy who are well known and successful with young teenagers (check the series by Pierre Bottero, Ellana, les Mondes d'Ewillan, or Tara Duncan books by Sophie Audouin-Mamikonian), or who come from the tabletop RPG background (such as Frédéric Weil for Nephilim, or Mathieu Gaborit for Agone).

I read some of my daughters books from the Ellana series (and liked them, but that's off-topic), and books from Frédéric Weil or Mathieu Gaborit, but just can't remember what units where used. As a matter of fact, I think they would have been in some way non-immersion breaking, or just absent: for example by using time of travel to measure big distances, or notions such as close or far, or in reach or not.

In the case of books, the reader doesn't have to make any kind of conversions. Approximations are enough (miles are big, kilometers too: 20 of each seem far to travel on foot), or meters / yards / feet (x3 for those) are used for human sized things.

Which leads me to think that units in PFO should be non-immersion breaking for the player: it should be easy to have them presented in metric or imperial depending on the prefs of the player, and have them rounded nicely so as to avoid having cumbersome decimals around. And who cares if they don't convert precisely (mathematically) between both systems, as long as they are consistent ?

What I mean is that an hex could:

. be sticking to "reality" in both systems, as defined by GW today : 680 m flat to flat (as Stephen Cheney said), = 2231 feet flat to flat, taking 8'46" for a human to cross (base speed of 30', 3 miles / hr walking pace). Player chooses in prefs if he wants metric or imperial units.

. or be sort of elastic : round it up or down in each system for better understanding by players, making it for example 700 m flat to flat for Metric users, or 2200 (or 2300 or 2500 or whatever) for Imperial users, but keeping the same travel time of 8'46 in both systems. (Ok, this one isn't a good idea)

. or expressed in some medieval units no one really knows about (leagues, farlongs, goblinmeters, but using decimal conversions) for players, stay in meters internally for devs, and keep the same travel time to cross it.

IMHO, I like the 3rd idea best : doesn't break immersion. Distance in a MMO is really about time taken to travel or range in order to hit something (or not). Doing the math is done by the computer, whereas in a tabletop RPG it's our job to calculate distances.

Moonbird,
(based in France)

Thanks for your answers, Andius and Being, they clarify a bit my understanding of the rep system.

Reputation is separate from alignment. While most actions that lower reputation will be chaotic and evil it is possible to have a high reputation character who is one or both of those things. It may even be possible to have a lawful good character with a low reputation.

Basically, reputation is lowered through random slaughter, but there are still aggressive actions such as robbery and assassination that make your character more chaotic/evil without lowering reputation.

Low rep is absolutely designed to make your character suck. Random slaughter is something the majority of the community does not want to be prevalent, and the head of this project has gone so far as to say that they would rather not make this game than produce a murder simulator. So people who do it much will find themselves with terrible characters that live in terrible cities.

It seems to me, from the blog post, that the only player initiated action that will lower rep automatically will be attacking another character out of sanctioned PvP (wars, feuds, FW). (I'm leaving out the rep loss as a GM sanction for bad conduct).

A character with a high Reputation is likely someone who only engages in PvP via feuds, wars, or factional combat (if he engages in PvP at all), while a character with low Reputation likely attacks people regardless of those PvP structures or is rude or abusive to other players.

It's a game mechanic, meaning, as you said, that a character from any Alignment can lose rep this way. I still don't understand (or agree actually) with the fact that these low rep characters should be denied high level training facilities based on 2 reasons: the first, that I would qualify as a background kind of reason, is that if low rep PCs are more likely to come from CE alignment, and given that CE (as we imagine it) favors a more individualistic point of view on life, we can then imagine that a high level training facility for a CE settlement would be some kind of "survival of the fittest" training academy specially tailored for fighting, assassination, sabotage and stealth skills.

The second reason is more based on observation of what happens in EvE: the low rep guys in EvE have a security standing below -5, and are denied access to high security space of the Empire. They can still trade in low sec space, acquire skills and goods either directly or through friendly high SS characters. Well I don't feel EvE is overrun by gankers and griefers, in part because after all there's only a small fraction of the players who are willing to go down that way, in part because the areas of lawlessness are well identified (high sec > low sec > null sec).

I think the idea is that chaotic evil settlements will find it challenging to cooperatively build toward an orderly, constructive, cooperative civic organization that efficiently builds much of anything beyond the basics necessary to stay alive. Lawful settlements are by definition lawful and stable which is ideal for mercantile operations. Laws protect private property so there is assurance that your neighbor is less likely to take all your stuffs, which in turn encourages to get more stuffs.

I think you're right in general, but a CE low rep settlement could still offer a limited list of high level training facilities done their way (instead of following a fighting class 101, it would be an arena style "class" where it's the last standing guy who gets the experience or whatever).

So my proposition to the devs would be to lower the limitations on high level training facilities for low rep characters, and allow a limited list of skills to be trained in Chaotic settlements, based on character class or concept description (e.g.: fighting, assassination, sabotage and stealth skills for a CE settlement).

Seeya,
Moonbird

@Ryan
Thanks a lot for all these explanations, and from what you write about Pathfinder Online, I would really like so see it come out and be as interesting as what you describe :-)

Your blog posts and the discussion of Sandbox vs Theme Park also enabled me to understand why I was never as happy with current MMOs I played (WoW mainly, Guildwars, Warhammer, Age of Conan, soon SWTOR), after the first one I started with (Shadowbane), because they all are Theme parks (or maybe because it's like your first date, you never forget her)...

I now realize that what I really loved with Shadowbane was it's Sandbox aspect, where a guild had to build a city, and a then a realm, and defend it against other players. This led to epic battles (sieges) between players, that where truly memorable because of the time and effort spent into building what you were defending, thus a certain "value" attached to it. (See this post if you want to have an idea of what the game was like: http://massively.joystiq.com/2011/08/02/the-game-archaeologist-uncovers-sha dowbane-the-highlights/ )

I never played EVE, so maybe this aspect is also present in it, and explains its attractivness to long term players.

So if Sandbox in Pathfinder Online means player cities and sieges, I would say: YEAH !!!! HOURRAHHH !!! :-)

@Vic
Another expectation I have, is using a Mac client ! Please please please, include this in your initial requirements :-) Shadowbane and WoW (had) have native Mac clients, and nothing beats that: playing Windows only games under bootcamp is a pain, mainly because it means rebooting your computer each time you want to play... And in the end, it's a factor when you feel like switching to something else.

I really hope you can make this game come out !
Cheers,
Moonbird