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Goblin Squad Member

Was it the ultimate magic book that had the key word based magic? That was a pathfinder only property I believe and would fit well in an MMO. I believe you created your spells by picking your properties [range] + [area of effect] + [type] = spell, I think? So picking keywords like [long range] + [medium burst] + [fire] = fireball. With that system you could recreate most if not all of the classic spells at near the same spell level and allthough you could in effect have all the spells from the OGL keeping with the generic format above, calling a spell by its keywords and allowing PCs to name them whatever they wish when entering them into spellbooks, may kill any legal issues.

Plus specializations could lower the casting level of a spell and keywords from an oposition school could be increased in caster level. Also each keyword could be a skill on the tree, so I think it would fit rather well in PFOs skill based training. Ie you if wanting to be a necromancer could train in skills that add to your specialization, while ignoring keywords in the illusion school to further get ahead in the necro tree.

I really liked that system from what I remember, it would allow for specializations, perhaps someone who is better versed in the system could be more than I have been, but I honestly hope they have a system such as this in game, even if it strays from the core book it can still keep with the pathfinder flavor.

Goblin Squad Member

Yeah this is why I want a strong lawful evil settlement right off the bat organized by players who know the difference between law/chaos. To show those who think that all who wish to play evil are griefers that evil can be something more constructive. This is not to say that all CE will be griefers but with strong LE it could really help people get that there should be a major difference between evil and griefing in a fantasy MMO.

Goblin Squad Member

True but those players should fall towards chaotic by the actions they take in game and any lawful evil settlement worth its salt would ban and authorize a kill on site for known chaotic players. Those players would also suffer all the consequences of an unlawful PK as long as evil their algnment.

Goblin Squad Member

Well what if the heinous flag only removed the consequences when the algnment differs between the flagged and the potential crusader. Maybe go so far as to make it so only those with a good algnment get the "free kill". That would help keep the lawful evil communities from falling apart.

Goblin Squad Member

A couple of name ideas.

The One Empire
The Last Empire

These fit with the LE vibe and with the bringing order at all costs to the world. One day all will be part of the empire.

It may seem a bit grandiose but I could see a few dark beaten and bloodied souls wandering into the riverlands dedicated to bringing forth an empire of law to defeat the chaos in the world, to bring all under one law, one truth, to bring them all under the rule of the one true Empire, the last empire.

Also once this gets rolling one of you guys should check out the Treaty of Rovagug - An offer to every non-griefer organization thread, being publicly involved in something like that may help the community see this as what it is not a group of griefers. Though I haven’t read through the link in the thread, hopefully what they consider griefing doesn't end up making it impossible to play evil at all.

Goblin Squad Member

As long as it's short term and doesn't hurt the player economy, I'd support that.

Goblin Squad Member

Andius wrote:


Getting conserned there are too few evil guilds in an Open World PVP game that is still in early development is like getting conserned there are too few flies buzzing around a dump your dog just took on a hot summer day.

They will come. And when they do they will be beyond count. Just give it some time.

The anology that you use makes the evil aligned players flies who feed on the good players, what does that make the good players? (I do hope that is taken lightly as it was intended, no offence is intended)

I believe the flood you are speaking of are those of the lowest online moral stock, the griefer, well burn those flies up. I think those that are trying to organize some evil at this point are only trying on creating a foil for the good guys. An entity that competes for resources but will still not stand for griefing. I for one would like to play on the darker side but would gladly join forces with a good character to stamp out those kind of players. Which is why lawful evil would be the only evil algnment I could play.

Kill you once, shame on you. Kill you twice (or 10 times), shame on me and a possible appearance ban from dev land.

A merchant caravan comes near our settlement sure I would destroy it and take the spoils if they won't pay the lawful fee's for passing our teritory. But if anyone spawn camps or trys to unlawfully murder lawful players in my hex, I'll gather my evil companions and stamp them out, while I'm contacting GW to get the ban hammer swinging.

From your thread Treaty of Rovagug - An offer to every non-griefer organization it seems that you understand that griefing and evil can and should be different things, I know that griefers will be pushed towards the evil algnment but please don't lump evil characters in with evil players.

Evil characters are ok, evil players are not.

Goblin Squad Member

Hark wrote:
This game is about players making meaningful decisions. NPC's independently building advanced power blocks runs counter to this idea. However, I have proposed in the past and will continue to promote the idea of Players promoting and advancing NPC groups. Your Kobold wouldn't develop beyond wide spread Kobold camps on their own. But, Players could choose to do missions that would advance the Kobold civilization, leading to more organized Kobold, more powerful Kobolds, and possibly even Kobold settlements. But this would require the continuous effort of many players and other players could work against it setting back Kobold civilization greatly.

I support this idea, I would love to have another option for the escalation other than kill everything. Helping out the kobolds set themselves up peacefully and your company has friends in them or a peaceful neighbor for your kingdom. Alternately if you’re an evil settlement perhaps you could subjugate them. Either option should have both positive and negative ramifications.

Goblin Squad Member

Sounds pretty cool, I would suggest having these "positive random encounters" happen in unclaimed hexes or at least happen more often in them, it would encourage competition to get the settlement buff or other kind of bonus. Also I would say that if a good aligned pilgrim gives a good settlement a temple, killing him and using him for "dark rites" would offer a profane temple a boon. Thus increasing the stakes a bit.

Goblin Squad Member

This is how I would like to see it.

BalBobben wrote:
Yeah, I would agree with that. Having some sort of throttle system requiring tapping of keys and whatnot seems overly complicated. WASD should move you around on key press and stop on key lift. Maybe a run/walk toggle or sprint button would help immersion; but just base sprint-time on a set number of seconds and refresh at a set time as well, not based on stats or encumbrance (although that would be nifty). I would assume a stealth/crouch toggle as well.

Hold down W to walk toggle to jog, this will be the regular move speed with no time limit.

For a faster pace hold shift+W and your running with a 25% speed bonus with say a 100 second timer, if that timer reaches 0 you can't run again until it recharges one second at a time, so as long as you keep it from hitting 0 you could use your run about 50% of the time.

Now say you need a sprint with a 50% speed bonus to save your good buddy Nonexistent, a very noble goal, Hold shift and double tap W and you’re sprinting but this makes the counter go down by 5 every second, totally worth it and Nonexistent would really appreciate the save.

Make jumping while the counter is going down cost 5 seconds to keep down the jumping PVP beans and still make movement a bit more interesting than the standard MMO.

Also tying this to constitution would be kinda awesome.

Goblin Squad Member

The idea of having specialized player settlements, whether they be underground or a village in the trees would be awesome. However in the case of a mountain kingdom you would have to make it possible to destroy the settlement otherwise those who took it would have an unfair advantage. Maybe have the walls of the mountain be destroyable so the defense forces couldn't just hold a couple of small entrances and bottleneck the attackers.

Definitely something that I would support after the game is stable and has most it's features worked out and in game.

Goblin Squad Member

Alku Leon wrote:
I want to know that when I jump out from the shadows, its going to be me, or him. One of us is going to end up dead on the ground, the other is going to get the spoils.

Amen brother, if GW can capture this feeling, with the world and lore of pathfinder around it, they will have me for life.

Goblin Squad Member

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Offering asylum to other guilds is a good start, Why not offer various mercenary groups a place to call home. I personally see a LE organization as a place ruled by a military with the military as a police force as well. With a council of lords that are generals of their own armies all based out of one settlement. This would have the benefit of relieving some of the weight of keeping the player base interested until launch.

It would also give each group of military the ability to set their own goals, which would fit in quite nicely with the overall evil of the organization/settlement/nation.

Saying only that they must act together in the defense of the kingdom and lord generals and pay a percentage of their profits to the upkeep and advancement of the whole kingdom. This would give them the benefit of having a player controlled settlement without all of the costs and keeps them from having to use all of their forces for defense.

Goblin Squad Member

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I'm going for pets as well.

Lee Hammock said wrote:
Pets - Pets are primarily animal companions for rangers and druids. It will also allow familiars and random guard dogs or other such animals to follow the players along, but those are not primary features of a class so they'll be less useful. The tech involved is all the AI for pets pathing with you plus combat AI, plus all the mechanics work balancing them and all the animations. This also makes things like hiring mercenaries or hirelings to follow you around possible since its basically the same system. Also vanity pets so you can have a random pet animal that follows you around.

The system allow classes with companions to keep more of their flavor and adds a mechanical benefit to those classes.

I do plan on rolling druid and I understand that I would have other abilities that would keep my class viable but a companion would be preferable.

The "pet" system would set it up for the merchents to be able to hire gaurds and the like to help get goods back to town.
I know player could do this and would be better at gaurding, but filling out your gaurd ranks with some more lesser troops will decide more than one fight.

A pet system could be used for pack animals and the like, helping anyone who needs to move goods.

Andius wrote:
1. Pack mules and donkeys aren't mounts. So they are pets. These are what traders are going to need early in the game. Not fast mounts that can't carry much, and not expensive carts and wagons that carry far more than needed. Even it we want carts we can have mules pull them though.

I agree with this, if they allow pack animals into the pet system it would make it 100x better chioce for the economy.

Andius wrote:

How Mounts Early On Hurt Us

1. It makes a small map smaller. In many ways it doesn't matter how large a map is. The size of a map is how long it takes you to cross it. People get more out of travel and exploration if the world is revealed to them gradually, rather than handed to them quickly/easily as they gallop through it. Mounts become nessecary as the world grows. Before that they are un-needed and allow people to access content FAR too easily.

I agree though if mounts only increased speed by a minor amount like say +30% with a "gallop speed" that would increase that to 50% once every 10min for 15sec for quick escapes, it wouldn't be too bad. Just as long as mounts are moving at a reasonable speed and not 480%+ like WoW it shouldn't be horrible.

Goblin Squad Member

Basic formation:
Instead of boxes I would like to see "tethers". The commander would select a point for the center of the formation and each member would have a tether that he follows to his correct position allowing a bit of free play. The line would be green when close enough for a full bonus, turn yellow a few steps out and the bonus for that troop would be halved and provide a breach in a shield wall where an enemy could conceivable get through, and finally when too far out of formation would turn red and remove the bonus from that player and reduce the remaining bonus for the formation as if it were a player short. The commander would have a visual que as to their status and be able to switch another player into that spot if he has the reserves to do it.

Also when the commander orders a formation change it would have a small 2-3 second grace period where the players could change formation while still keeping a smaller bonus for those who were still in the previous formation.

Ranged:
For ranged troops may they be mages or crossbowmen I would include a mechanic to increase the firing range while in proper formation giving all the players the same range so nobody gets the crap end of the paper by being just one step out of range and having nothing to do but sit and stare. (within limits of course for the range consideration I am thinking 5 troops or so per unit which share the same attack sphere.

Melee:
Melee is a tough one. As far as a shield wall goes I think the best way to get players to use it is to just have it be so effective it can't be ignored. Walk forward, lower shield, stab it would be better suited to NPCs but if we are looking at large NPC armies where the players are the captains it could be cool. I'm pretty sure a thousand player army with 5 troops a piece all running about in a hex would lag out to the point that formations would be moot.

On the other hand Calvary and flanking forces or harrying units would be having a great time with a basic loose formation for the ground troops and nice moving formations for our mounted friends with the option of tightening to something a bit more defensive if the tides turn.

Ranks:
I would like to see it go something like this. Though there's quite a bit of room for middle ranks.

Commanding General of the armies:
The overall commander of all your troops he get a fancy GUI that shows unit location and strength for his own forces and any within view of this captains in the field. His GUI has a scalable hex grid map of the battlefield with colored and numbered blips that he can drag to new locations or select new formations from a list to the side which tells the captain to move his troops in the desired direction or to the correct location. He also has general battlefield commands that apply to all troops such as "finish them" or "retreat". The more units that are in the proper place the larger overall army buff all the troops on your side get.

Captains:
These are the leaders of 5-6 individual troops that form a unit. They give orders to their unit such as formation and which direction to move. They are the ones whom actually move where the tethers are tethered. They can reorganize troops in the formations individually and are right there in the fighting with a place in the formation.

How to keep AOE from destroying your tight formation:
This does present a problem and I think the devs have commented on this, I just can't quite remember what was said. But placing a magic class with each unit or one that works with multiple units could conceivably cast a minor protection spell on his troops. I'll call them protection and protection from magic, each player with one of these spells has sort of a magic shield around them that blocks some magic, when in formation the shield gets stronger adding the individual shields into a "magic shield wall" one that protects really well against AOE but direct magic damage can still get through.

Anyway that’s kinda how I envision it. I'm thinking the Melee needs some work and this doesn't take into concideration bards which should be awesome in large scale warfare running around inspiring people.

Goblin Squad Member

I really think the game is going to need something like what you suggest and would be interested in supporting such a group. My main will be starting down the druid tree and I'm not sure I could keep my alignment set. There is however always my destiny’s twin, who I plan to roll as a cleric , if this takes off I'll be there ready to punish the weak lawless heathens for the glory of Asmodeus and your budding empire.

Healing duties negotiable and by contract only...

Goblin Squad Member

You should check in with the folks over at The Seventh Veil a newspaper looks like it would fit right in with those guys.

Goblin Squad Member

So far it looks like most of the groups on the land rush are on the lawful or good side of the alignment axis, I see lots of friendly spots for people to call home but where oh where will the bandits and upcoming warlords come to roost? Having their own community would be counterproductive as I believe we have quite a few large "good guy" guilds and any bandits would draw their ire quite quickly.

Honestly The Community of Shadow Haven looks like the best bet for all sorts and I'd like to see them be in the top of the lists for getting a chunk of land come early enrollment. We need a place that the less reputable of us could go to lick our wounds or hire an undead hoard or two no questions asked. A place that isn’t directly responsible for any attacks on the good guys.

So hopefully there are more likeminded individuals than what I see on the board otherwise the good guys may have no budding warlords to fight?

Ravening wrote:
Shadow-Haven is an experiment to gauge whether it’s possible to create a viable evil-aligned community in PFO from day 1. Shadow-Haven will begin first as an Inn (The Black Cauldron) that will cater to bandits, cultist, assassins, necromancers and other ne’er-do-wells. After all, everyone needs a place to eat, drink, do business and relax. When enough resources have been gathered then a Tower to Higher learning will be built, and eventually a fort then a settlement.

So maybe you’re not looking to be one of the top groups in the land rush, but either way, how does one sign up to be a part of your great community?

Goblin Squad Member

I really like the upgrade the troops options for player settlements, you start with a group of peasents with clubs that follow orders when they want to and through many upgrades and training end up with a crack group of fully geared city guards with pikemen, mounted scouts trained to shoot a shortbow from horseback, a company of crossbowmen and patrols walking the streets. This would be a nice gold sink that would have a good benifit at the end.

Goblin Squad Member

A couple of ideas to help get people to stop home when they are in town.

Additional storage will keep people coming home on a regular basis no matter what, but if you want players to have reasons to stick home you could have a reduction to crafting crafting time in home for small scale projects.

Like buy an alchemy table and cut potion brewing time by 25% but the batches are smaller than in an alchemy lab and have a smaller selection based on how much you spend on your set up.

Also make resting and refreshing daily skills on the same level as an inn or tavern. Also I would love if you could set player made traps to keep out the darker element of PFO.

Goblin Squad Member

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Drakhan Valane wrote:

I could see 3 types of food:

1. "Fuel" for Settlements. This would be something that is used every hour by the settlement to "feed" the NPCs that invisibly run stuff behind the scenes. You run out of this and your settlement will suffer and eventually collapse. This would be "Barrels of Foodstuff" or some good name.

This would be ideal, farms produce bulk food stuffs that are labeled "bulk wheat" or "bulk corn" have them all crated up or in barrels, a farmer or a merchant could break down the bulk goods into usable amounts for cooking or get them to a settlement to be fed to the peasants, keeping the starvation away from the masses and keeping the settlement running smoothly.

Drakhan Valane wrote:
2. "Prepared Meals" for Inns and Taverns. This would be a type of food that isn't useful unless purchased at an Inn or Tavern. These would be fairly cheap to produce compared to rations since they are not usable in the field.

Instead of having food as a buff or to remove a debuff I believe stopping at an inn should a "relaxation=morale" type buff, something tied like "food quality" + "entertainment quality" + "companionship" + "time spent = a boost to morale (with a cap that keeps it from getting crazy high), that lasts for a full game day (6hours I believe).

The same could be said of camps though you'd need a bard or some other kind of entertainment to get the entire bonus.

Summersnow wrote:

Now, if they want to tie food & drink to the refresh mechanics (the "ability reset button") that could work.

Something along the lines of different quality food & drinks which determine how long the refresh takes and how many abilities reuses it refreshes.

cheap bread and water gives you 1 extra ability reuses, common bread & water 2 extra ability reuse, elegant meal and fine drink 4 extra ability reuses.

In combo with the above, adding in the quality of entertainment, companionship(just sitting near others while eating/drinking should do this one)and time spent seems like an ok way to do it as long as the morale boost is a small enough reward or buff that in a one on one fight it's not an I win kind of reward but would add up in parties of adventurers to turn an equal fight into a slight advantage for those that have a morale boost.

Drakhan Valane wrote:
3. "Trail Rations." Standard Adventurer fare. These cost a bit more than Prepared Meals since they have to be specially prepared to last in the field.

I can't find the quote but in addition to the tie to the refresh of abilities you could keep them cheap and have your trail rations increase your heal rate while eating. (I would keep 1st aid firmly in the fixing bad injuries/stopping bleeding area if this were the case, so as not to cut the demand of cheap trail rations.)

So food by itself increases your healing and helps refresh abilities. Going to a tavern, inn or camp with fellow adventurers causes a morale bonus and refreshes more abilities, the NCP population gets fed through bulk goods. This system allows for the stratagies in warfare keeping your settlement fed, Trail rations should be eaten on a regular basis by players creating a need for them and gets peoples butts into taverns or around campfires without the "oh its been 10 minutes, I better go back to town and buff up" problem. It keeps the gamechanger buffs in the hands of potion makers. It also adds more gameplay chioces making dancing, singing and juggling something worth going for.

Goblin Squad Member

I think a simple toggle next to each guild / chartered company / player nation you are a member of they could have a toggle: public, private, and member only notification. Really I think this would add alot to the game. It could also be countered by divination or skill checks to add a bit of danger to keeping secrets from your leaders. I like this idea as well.

Goblin Squad Member

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I would like to see food have buffs for PCs as well. In the pevious food thread linked above by Dakcenturi, Nihimon and GrumpyMel came up with something that seems pretty solid without being too much of a burden.

Nihimon wrote:

I think the beauty of GrumpyMel's idea about getting one kind of buff from Inns and another from Rations is that it's really simple and doesn't require the developers to spend a lot of effort tracking timers on individual in-game objects.

The way I'd like to see it is:

•Inns - 100% strength, 4 hours.

•Camps - 80% strength, 2 hours.

•Rations - 60% strength, 1 hour.

Or something like that...

I would also like to see a mechanic for feeding the troops in warfare as well as a base amount needed to be gathered to keep any settlement running at peak efficiency. With crafting and such being run by NCP characters and our PCs doing the supervision, in any player run settlement there will be quite a few peasants and they are going to need a food supply. This would add a nice dynamic with the siege warfare as players would have to decide whether to burn their own farms to keep the invading army from using them or to defend the farms and keep a supply line to the settlement. This would open up room for players to smuggle in more food to keep their city running during a long term siege.

During peaceful times a settlement could make a profit from collecting food from farms and taxing the peasants on its sale. Store houses could stock up food and other supplies and if a settlement has a surplus and an ally is under long term attack could attempt to break a few supply wagons through the enemy lines.

I don’t know about anyone else but I think there is a lot of potential in a system like this, in war time it would add additional strategy and in peace times it would be nice for a player settlement to have a steady income that could be used for upkeep.

Goblin Squad Member

I've been looking through the forums and reading up on the companies and kingdoms that are forming, and I will admit that the seventh veil is the one that looks to have the closest fit to my play style. I'll have another read through the thread. Thanks for the reply.

Goblin Squad Member

Ideally I would like to have a small operation to train vanity pets and mounts, or even dogs bred for war. I’m not sure that this will be in game at any point but, I would love to be the guy to go to for anything from cute little hoping frogs to massive war horses whose hooves shatter the bones of my clients enemies.

If that’s not in possible in game, I would be perfectly happy just scouting around the river kingdoms looking for dungeons, ore, and fellow players to help out, whether in PVP or with simple advice. I’m really not hard to please.

Goblin Squad Member

I am looking for a loose affiliation of players to join up with that has no overarching purpose but to help each other out. (This is not to say that individual members cannot be members of other groups or even leaders of nations.) This group would be no kingdom or assassins guild but a group with various alignments, skills and goals that agrees to first and foremost to do no harm to its own members, and secondly to assist other members in times of need. May that need be helping during an attack on their mine, providing cheap protection for another members wagon train full of ore, a small investment to help get a tavern running or quick retribution on a murderer if a member should fall. An in game family of sorts, "I may not like what you’re doing but one will always support his family."

I would start something like this up myself but when release comes my daughter will be just hitting 3 so a few hours here and there is all I’m going to be able to play for a quite a while. This sort of group would let players like me keep a meaningful online existence. Players who won't know when they may get a chance to log in, but when they do are ready to work or play hard and share his or her gains with those who have their back.

I would prefer to have my character not be a goody two-shoes but still have the moral values to keep himself from torturing small goblin children just for the kicks. So anyone planning a group such as this?

(My description kind of screams secret society and I do realize the irony of asking on a public forum if anyone is forming one, but heck why not it’s a year or 2 off, no one will remember one forum thread at launch, right?)

Goblin Squad Member

Skwiziks wrote:
@Nonexistent, huh, that's not a bad idea, necessarily.

Really thats how I thought it was going to be put together anyway, I really thought that that was the whole idea behind merit badges. But I've been wrong before :)

Goblin Squad Member

+1 for customizing and upgrading, and pack animals that can be removed and used as mounts or swapped out to increase speed in different areas. Nice ideas.

Goblin Squad Member

Oh and as for location I would say as long as your in the same hex or general area, your specific location shouldnt matter. As long as it can't be abused to safely travel from one side of the game world to the other.

Goblin Squad Member

Valkenr wrote:

For my support:

1. The system should not create any situation where the smallest hint of a 'log off ritual' is shown. The system must be indifferent to player location in respect to the 'job' location, and take less than 5 seconds to check a box while logging out.

As for a log off ritual, I would say yeah bring up the menu and click melee guard rank 1 and I'd say your good.

Valkenr wrote:

2. The system must be air tight, and have absolutely no possible way for me to create 1 alt account i never intend to play and provide a 0.0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 01% advantage to anything. This would require something along the lines of requiring putting 100$ into a character to initially get into the system, meaning, that character has to generate 100$ for GW, this could be by the player buying specific things for that character, or the character buying 100$ worth of training vouchers with in game coin.

Going Free-to-play in any capacity opens some doors and closes way more.

Not sure about requiring a 100$ minimum to start but, this type of system would use skill training time so that should keep the amount of players from abusing it rather small(making free to play players only able to guard while online because of the lack of training time). Players with massive bank accounts could just hire NPC guards without a player guard system either way. Also creating a throw away account would get you a guard who's threat level is the same as a new player, not sure how much training time you would need to raise yourself to a 5 merit character but I assume it will be months, so they would need to buy training time for 5-10 accounts at the lowest level to exploit anything or be a real threat wouldn't they? Or am I just not seeing giant glaring way to abuse something like this?

Goblin Squad Member

One way to help players to be able to diversify skills while still being competent fighters/ mages would be to make the merit badge to gain your new ability take long enough that one would be able to train a few side skills without sacrificing much archetype skill leveling time. For example your last skill to be a 15 merit fighter is swordsmanship skill rank 4, training to rank 4 swordsmanship takes 2 weeks and the merit badge requirement say kill 1000 targets while using a sword would take days or weeks to complete, during which you could raise your fletching to be able to produce up to +1 arrows which takes less time, say 3 days to raise, this could be trained while the player is out in the game world in between finishing his archetype skill training and actually earning his archetype merit badges. While dedicated crafters whom are going for craft only skills would be on +5 arrows and be diversifying by training to make better and better longbows, crossbows or adding the fiery ability to their crafted items. In a system that’s going to take 2.5 years to reach capstone I believe there could be plenty of time to add a side skill or two at a competitive level without making pure crafting players suffer. The only part that would slow you down is actually stopping to make a few arrows, I believe that the amount of time required could be similar to what would be need in a skill through usage system. This is as was already said all about pacing and there’s no reason to think that skilling only straight class skills or crafting is even going to be a slightly efficient way to go.

Goblin Squad Member

So there seems to be a bit of interest in offline player activities, guarding and the like allowing players to become NPC characters while logged off. It has been brought up that this would be difficult on account of AI limitations and cpu requirements due to high amounts of persistent characters having to be loaded in high population areas. I support the inclusion of an in game option to preform limited NPC function while offline. I've got a few ideas to keep the AI and CPU limitations to a minimum.

I propose the creation of a "Job pool" system where at any point a play could "que" his or her character up to perform a Job, For my example I will use a guard. A player could go to an inn or guard post and sign up to work as a guard, queing up to be in the Job pool for anywhere from 8 to 24 hours. At that point other players could hire the character based on a stat block with information like rank, name, companies he or she is a member of, number of guard shifts preformed and/or contracts broken, once hired they would be removed from the pool and their character would spawn as an NPC guard and perform as a NPC guard for a certain amount of time. With a Max amount of time of say 6 hours (one 24 hour PFO day/night cycle), meaning a player settlement would need to hire multiple shifts to keep constant protection. When queing up the player would have to choose a role to be hired as, i.e. melee guard, archer, scout, healer, or mage guard, each of these role would have some skill based requirements to que for. Someone smarter than me could come up with a better list with skill requirements when more info is available about what skills there are in PFO, so all basic archetypes could perform some role. A player would have to reque after each guard duty to rejoin the pool, preventing players from going offline for 6 months and coming back to loads of free coin. This system would prevent players skill timers from counting down while "on duty" and allow them to restart when despawning or going "off duty". Here is a basic example using melee and scout. (skill requirements assume a 1-5 rank skill system where 5 is the max skill rank)

Melee guard:
Your basic bruiser, bouncer and all around tough guy wields a mace stands around and looks mean until stuff hits the fan then pounds the problem to the ground, good choice for fighters and the like. Can be set a personal body guard or caravan guard and will stay within a certain range of the target they are protecting.

Melee Guard(rank 1): Requirements: Medium Armor, Martial Weapons rank 1

Melee guard(rank 2): Requirements: Heavy Armor, Martial Weapons rank 2

Melee guard(rank 3): Requirements: Heavy Armor, Martial Weapons rank 3

Melee guard(rank 4): Requirements: Heavy Armor, Martial Weapons rank 4

Melee guard(rank 5): Requirements: Heavy Armor, Martial Weapons rank 5

Scout:
Rides around a protected area looking for NPC mobs and incoming player forces does not engage in combat unless threatened, sends predefined reports to the captain of the guard in a player settlement, "Small group of orc raiders setting up a camp 2 miles to the northwest." , "Large player group spotted to the south 2 siege engines". The scout can then be ordered to engage, return to base or continue to watch covertly. In caravans travels ahead during fast travel and gives warnings if an ambush is discovered.

Scout(rank 1): Requirements: Tracking rank 1, Martial Weapons rank 1

Scout(rank 2): Requirements: Tracking rank 2, Martial Weapons rank 1, requires mount

Scout(rank 3): Requirements: Tracking rank 3, Martial Weapons rank 2, Stealth rank 1, requires mount

Scout(rank 4): Requirements: Tracking rank 4, Martial Weapons rank 2, Stealth rank 2, requires mount

Scout(rank 5): Requirements: Tracking rank 5, Martial Weapons rank 3, Stealth rank 3, requires mount

Each rank would use a predefined AI while the character is offline, basically ignoring the rest of the players skills and abilities. Rank 1 would be roughly as challenging as a 1 merit badge player, rank 2 a 5 merit badge, rank 3 a 10 merit, rank 4 a 15 merit, rank 5 a 20 merit. If logged in while hired certain rules would need to be followed, town or building guards would have to stay near town or the protected building but could otherwise choose to craft, buy, sell or play in any fashion as long as they are available to protect the contracted area. Scouts would be able to ride about in the wilderness but would need to keep their time in town to a minimum. I think the above would keep the AI needed to a minimum requiring a set number of basic NPC scripts of basic skill and power levels without the need of dealing with the massive amounts of abilities for a Fighter 20, Druid 20, Ranger 20 class combo, instead using the Scout rank 5 skills and abilitys list. This also makes online PC guardians more valuable and will still allow for guard companies to prosper by offering 100% online guards.

The other consideration is PC appearance, gear and such will most likely have a wide range of looks and abilities. To combat this AI and CPU requirement a player could be required to wear a Guard uniform, with a basic set of armor appropriate to the role they are filling, Scouts in Leather gear with a sword as a weapon, Melee in Plate with a huge mace, etc. Regular player gear would be stored in a local guard storage and can be retrieved when logging on during guard duty. Player cities could pay for Uniform upgrades like +1 to AC all guard uniforms for 500 coin.

It could also be used to create "Crafting Pools" or "Magic Research Pools", like Rank 1 blacksmith for example, when hired reducing the amount of time required to craft an item by 5% or reducing the amount of raw materials needed to craft items.

I think a system like this would be invaluable for a player wanting to contribute to his or her company while having a limited amount of play time per day, and help increase the amount of player interactions by simplifying the hiring process and getting people together. So for anyone who read that giant block, what do you think?

Sorry for the wall of text, just had to get that out of my head. I'm really excited about all the possibilities this game brings up and the direction its heading in so far.

Goblin Squad Member

A TCG style mini game might be pushing it a bit far for world flavor, but if fluffed properly I think alot of people would love it. Not much for that kind of game myself but I know a few friends of mine that may try the game out just for a mini game like Magic: The Gathering. As far as a few gambling mini games, I don't think you could have a shady tavern without a game or two of dice in the corner. Though yeah all this stuff is secondary to the main game and I think GW has enough on their plate without minigames to muck up the works till well after launch. Love the ideas though. I would really like having a little gambling den as well.

Goblin Squad Member

I was just wondering if anyone else thinks that it would be a good idea to implement a mechanic to alow players without a particular fast travel end point to "follow along" when joining a caravan as say a gaurd or passenger. As the playable world enlarges I think it may benefit alot of players, plus it makes a bit of sense that you could join up with a group of like minded travelers to help reduce the risk to individual players when trying too reach new far off areas. Members of small companies or solo players may have a spot of trouble traveling through dragon infested swamps to get to the next kingdom over as well.