Onishi's page

Onishi, if I'm interpreting you correctly, it sounds as if you expect all these costs, definitions, and other details to be laid out already? We're a year from Alpha, so I have trouble seeing any specifics as being delayed...yet.

No I'm not saying I expect them to be layed out, or even close planned out. I'm saying what I may or may like in PVP has moved to become more or less entirely dependant on those numbers, so I no longer can actually make any assesment at all as to whether the game will be like.

Onishi, it sounds like you're saying the original vision promised a much higher level of PvP risk, and that these latest statements from the devs have significantly reduced that. Was that your intent?

more or less yes. It is a bit jarring to hear the shift from the old mantra of those who do not risk PVP, can expect the slowest gains for their time, into "and this is where we have chosen to refocus the world for opt-in PvP".

I admit I'm struggling a bit to understand your concern here... who are you quoting there with the "well if they actually wanted to legitimately PvP..."? Is that what the devs might say?

I think you might be focussing too hard on the individual parts here (but as I say, Im not sure I understand so apologies if this is wrong!). If you want to PvP without consequence in PFO you will have to do it in one of the following ways;

More or less yes, the overall statements have taken a pretty huge step from outside in the world PVP is going to be a everlooming threat to be ready for. If you want to avoid PVP, stick to the starter areas.

To what is sounding like a stance of, PVP is a feature of the game that you can opt into. Anyone you meet who isn't on a faction that is at war with yours, is going to be an opponent who is at a severe disadvantage to you, unless you are the first person they've ever attacked.

Admitted maybe this is just a slight movement of the mark, the bulk of PVP is now moved to very low information things that we really have very few details about.

1) Catch a flagged character (criminal, heinous, etc).

Something that is likely not to pose much of a challange. People who do actions that are likely to give them bad flags... are the low rep players who did not stick to the thin box of rules.

2) Start a feud, literally giving you the chance to choose which enemies are meaningful to you.

Potential, but losely defined, as well the influence cost of it, could make it prohibitive. of course without the specifics, or a more solid understanding of the numbers, we have absolutely no way to even estimate the value, cost etc... This is the part with the best potential, but we have the least understanding of the cost.

3) Start a war, again giving you the chance to choose with whom to fight.

Again, costs... which depending on how it is done, could make the factions who actually bother to declare war, the worse ones at it (as I said not necessarily, but it is a possibility that concerns me

4) Join one or more factions in order to take on one or more enemy factions.

This would give potential for even matched opponents. The issue is we lack enough definition to know if we actually have a reason to be killing eachother, or just permission.

5) Stand and Deliver (within its limitations).
6) Assassination (again, within its limitations. More on that another time!)

These have potential, we'd need to see a bit about them in their redefined status to really judge

7) Pick up some bounties.

See 1.

8) Take ownership/management of one or more elements of a PoI and defend them from attackers (who have initiated an attack).

Again depends on the cost of initiation. IE without actual statistics. it could be that groups that spend the cost to initiate. could be driving themselves backwards... leading to few initiators.

As I've mentioned a few times, this isn't an absolute loss. It is just that everything that was fairly certain, has been moved into a "this is being redefined our plans will come later" area. The surface being treaded is what I would consider treacherous is all. Things that I considered sure bets on being fun are now in the things I have no idea whether it is going to be decent or bad, category.

As I mentioned a couple of posts up - the heroes and protagonists of PFO are YOU and your company/settlement/allies. The really exciting conflicts will be between you and other humans (I mean that out of game. Well, I assume the majority will be out of game humans...) Thats the beauty of an MMO. You are not just fighting with the game world you are fighting with the real world. I understand your concern about red vs. blue, but just like ignoring factional membership in any other MMO you are welcome to ignore factional membership in PFO and instead engage in the kind of combat that has meaning for you.

As I mentioned, there are ways that it can be implimented that I like the idea of. Namely if faction conflicts actually have specific goals, issues, end goals etc...

The overall fear I have of the idea of factions, and the dev's more or less stating that PVP is moving to more of an opt in, is that they are also implying harsher consiquences etc... on other PVP. Feuds I suppose I have to see to understand better. Wars are being designed to be costly, so that a settlement that is constantly at war, is one that is going to advance significantly slower than others.

The fear I have (which may very well be unjustified until we have greater details on factions etc...) is the moving of the mindset of "well if they actually wanted to legitimately PVP, he'd have joined a faction and let the faction pick who his enemies are, and keep in a constant state of conflict with people he never had any reason to be at conflict with, since he didn't, well his character or settlement should suck because he's a worthless griefer". Where to me, in my view, killing someone just because they are in a rival faction, in a scenario where the kill has no impact on the rivalry whatsoever, is closer to griefing.

As mentioned, if faction's are set up in a way where the player actions actually change the faction relations, that is a considerably different animal (and one I could actually like) than if faction relations are either permanently set, or changed without regards to what the players are doing.

When it comes to templates... I do have one problem right off the bat if we are talking "super hard to aquire, but very powerful and permanent".

They will not be uncommon 5 years into the game. I don't care if it takes 4 years to get. A permanant boost in a game where almost everything can be lost, IS HUGE.

Look at eve, titans take a stupidly large amount of work, there's tons of them in game... AND they are regularly destroyed. If CCP made a ship like the titan that was flat out exempt from loss, you could expect 15x as many people working towards them, basically they'd be everywhere.

(for those who are unfamiliar with eve, basically the titan takes thousands of man-hours worth of effort to build, something like 6 months of real time

Unless templates carried with them a pro's con list that made them evenly balanced against another character, they would be both overused. Raising the work to get them, would just leave new players at a point of "well I'll never reach that stregnth".

With items that can be lost, new players get the "it will take me years to get to that level, but hey there's also the chance that someone else will knock that guy down from his pedestal of power", by destroying that powerful item, bringing him down to my level.

Basically I hold this view on everything that is gamechangingly powerful, should have potential to change hands or disapear. Otherwise it is just a barrier to new players telling them they aren't going to be competitive or meaningful for a long time.

Hitting a couple of these questions. Tork will probably get more in the morning.

There should hopefully be more complexity to our factions than Horde vs Alliance. Importantly, you can mix and match them. So someone who's Pathfinders + Church of Iomedae + Eagle Knights is going to have an interesting confrontation when running into someone who's Pathfinders + Hellknights + Church of Asmodeus and someone who's Aspis Consortium + League of the Wood + Church of Desna.

Well I may be in the minority here, but the main thing I have a problem with in the general concept of factions, isn't so much the lack of complexity, as the lack of a hypothetically obtainable end goal. IE in horde vs alliance, at least in my view the issue wasn't that there's only 2, but that it delves into "bob is alliance, he is my enemy, he is and will always be my enemy".

Is there any probability of some player controlled drifts or tides changing within factions. Like say members of faction A can vote and change the enemy from X to Y.

I can see some potential cool things that can come out of factions, assuming they are done as more than a "OK you can now freely kill anyone of X", being the extent of it. Like say random events, in which X evil faction gets a faction alert.

Reports of an artifact that can be used to enslave thousands has fallen somewhere in the area to the north, recover it.

Good faction Y: Reports have come in that faction X has learned of a powerful artifact to the north, you must prevent that from falling into their hands at all costs!.

IE meaningful events revolving around the groups having specific goals that come into conflict, with win/lose conditions and rewards/consiquences.

The idea of X and Y, being at permenant conflict, with no possibility of changing, no chance of swing, no logical expectation of a truce or any goals to be worked for, flat out turns me off to the concepts of the game as a whole. Namely because I do want to have heavy meaningful PVP participation, and if the majority of the PVP is just as a X is my enemy because X is my enemy... my interest in the game has just dropped 5 notches.

Nihimon wrote:

I would very much like to see Reputation Gain work the same way as Experience Gain, possibly even tied so that you can't gain Reputation unless you're also gaining XP. It needs to be difficult to recover from actions which reduce your Reputation.

Thinking of an example with two characters, Hubert and Dubert, evenly matched alignment and reputation. They kill a pair of unflagged newbies and take equal hits to alignment and reputation. (And they take the newbies' starter green hats).

Hubert is in a break in school, and for the next week he's playing a good 8 hours a day. Dubert is out all week and manages only 4 hours of play on the weekend. So one plays something like 40 hours, the other plays 4 hours.

If Hubert is playing 10 times as much as Dupert, should he also be able to kill 10 times as many unflagged green hats? Or is the number of green hats they can kill a realtime bag limit?

I usually prefer that timers (say, the 24-hour murderer flag, or a 1 hour chat mute for spewing F-bombs into global) only run down while the character is online. But I'm really on the fence here; I'm not sure that Hubert gets to kill 10 times as many unflagged people just because he has time to spend in game.

Aside - I do like the idea that reputation doesn't recover (or recovers at a reduced rate) when character is not gaining experience.

(edit to correct flag/unflag issues)

In your example, I'm not sure I actually would oppose the idea that the person who plays 10x more could kill 10x more.

first off if we take legitimate players, we can expect all players to run into some situations in which a rep losing kill is necessary, as no matter what an automated system is going to have holes in which legitimate PVP, is going to involve doing some tasks that involve borderline actions, same reason why we have a reputation system and not a one kill = you are a terrible person.

The person who plays 10x more, is going to run into 10x more situations which call for this.

Now in terms of flat out blatently negative behavior, IE your example. Between 2 players, would you be more forgiving of a person who logs in, 9x out of 10 he helps people out, gives good advice to newbies, builds up his settlement, then on day 10, kills a newbie for seemingly no reason. Or the guy who signs in once every 10 days, kills a newbie, signs off.

In my opinion, yes there certainly should be some difference between someone who plays a lot, but on occasion does something bad, and someone who plays very little, but 100% of the time he is playing is spent doing something bad.

So yeah, that is my overall beef with the idea that real time should be the only means of recovering reputation. At least in my worldview, I tend to judge people based on a sample size of all of my encounters with someone. If I only see someone twice, and he does something I disagree with both times... I'm going to have a very negative view of the person. If I see someone every day for a year, and he's done something I disagree with only twice... my view is going to be much more positive towards him. In my opinion, a viewpoint in which real time passing is the ONLY consideration,

Hell's bells, I'd like Druids to spawn trees one day and such mining to despawn trees and graphically degrade the area as well as influence the numbers which is the most important part. Yeah so to begin with I like Being's suggestion: Druid skill to increase yield/rate/recovery and so on. Very fitting and you want Druids right at the outer limits of the inputs to settlements

Only real problem with that is the metagamey side that will arise from it. IE while it may be druid like to help replace trees that go back. It isn't very druid like to pop trees up in front of the guy with an axe. In lore you would expect the druid to be trying to make the lumberjacks focus more on sustainability, keeping the forest alive etc... IE keeping the priority goal as the survival of the forest, and balancing ensuring the humanoids are able to fit into the balance.

In an MMO, especially one with competition as a heavy motivator, you can expect the druids concern for the value of nature, to be limited exclusively to where it benefits the humans. "Oh we have a different harvesting site, let me buff this one up a bit so you can get the most of it while driving it to the ground before we make our sustained forest the second one".

Then again, we could have a plausible route from that... Mechanics could be tweaked to encourage better options.

1. Resources regen based on their max. IE lets say the max value is 1,000, at 800+ the forest regens 50/hr. 700-799 40/hr, 600-699 30hr 500-599 25/hr, 400-499 20/hr, 300-399 10/hr, 299 and below, node is effectively dying, A costly spell can grant it 5/hr regen, until it re-reaches 300 and can slowly start growing back up.

With the exception of the 300- druids have an ability that can increase these regen rates by X%

Now, to further it though, The druids should also still have motivation to keep these sites high, even if their settlement no longer needs it. Druid's training and possibly some of their abilities, are affected by an overall "thriving" status. IE for the druids to gain the most of their abilities, (with the exception of the lower skills that are available from NPCs, as this won't apply to the NPC settlements for obvious reasons), The thriving status would be an extra stat to a city, based on the amount of healthy forests etc... within their claimed hexes.

It still has the drawback of the druid will have no motivation to care outside of their territory, and most likely will be happy to aid a scorched earth burn down the enemies forest type of plan, but as a whole, it covers most of the goals.

randomwalker wrote:

Very large Resource Gathering Operations in PFO may still be run by a single player overseeing the RGO itself and anyone else providing security and logistics. At least according to early blogs/posts, the GW design is that NPCs do the tedious grunt work and the player is there for management and decisions. So it only takes one player with 'gathering fixation' to get any large scale effects.

Maybe one player can only order around so many common folk. You might need a pool of them that is greater than what one person can provide in order to effectively run a harvesting operation.

Not to mention, no matter how many common folk you have digging. One man isn't going to be able to save them when their harvesting brings in an army of goblins etc...

I don't like your assumption that a NE city will let bandits attack anyone associated with them. While my company will be involved in banditry around the map we arn't about to "s##% where we eat." NE hexes may be the safest places to be.

I have to agree with this statement. Evil is not a synonym for stupid. If anything I'd imagine evil likely to be MORE harsh on anyone who upset's their supply chain. Not only would I imagine an evil company not robbing the people delivering them resources or crafting them items. I'd imagine them hunting down and dealing a massively disproportionate level of revenge against anyone who does.

Oh so Joe bloe down in settlement Y killed 2 of our merchants costing us 300 GP worth of supplies.

Well... we'll give settlement Y an option. Toss Joe bloe onto the street for us to hunt and kill until we capture 500GP worth of supplies, or we raid everything not bolted to the ground in settlement Y.

One key problem right from the getgo of PVP flagging being requirement to PVP. Haven't the dev's already stated they were leaning towards friendly fire? That goal in and of itself is 100% incompatible with characters being capable of playing but incapable of PVPing.

Onishi wrote:

Basically all these factors in mind, the reward from a dungoen like this, is either A. Going to be negligable, B. Going to overtake the rest of the content by a huge margain.

Alternatively (not saying it's the best alternative), the rewards from dungeons could be different from the rewards of other activities with no significant overlap.

Example: Dungeoneers are rewarded with gemstones but not with wood. Outdoor gatherers are rewarded with wood but not with gemstones.

A nice mage staff requires both wood and gemstones to craft -> crafters need the yields from both dungeoneers and gatherers, yet these groups of players are not in direct competition with each other.

At which point you can expect the price of gemstones to be extremely rapidly changing. People stop running the instances, their prices skyrocket, people run the instances like crazy to take advantage of the new high prices, only to discover that they have fallen down the toilet.

The supply demand curve pretty quickly turns unstable when the players have absolute control of the supply. Coupled in with the randomness of wood (IE excess of gemstones while wood is in shorter supply), my theory on this economically is it will result in massive hording of gemstones when the prices are low, and mostly stable very low price of gemstones afterwards unless there is a huge boom of wood. More or less giving instances the A. Scenerio anyway

Here's what IMO could be fully plausible. A toolset given to players to craft PVE instances, and maybe even PVP games etc... But under one important thing. These parts of the game, do not exist within the game world. Rather, from a central hub at the NPC starter cities.

This hub could contain GW designed instances, as well as player designed instances. However, the most important detail of this area... would be in both the lore, and the reality of it. Essentially it would be essentially a holodeck from startrek, only based off illusion magic rather than technology.

Objects, locations etc... created in an illusionary world, do not leave the illusionary world. Players etc... who wish to have a prize or reward for clearing challenges etc... Must bring the items they wish to grant as a prize, to the tower of illusion (or whatever this location will be called). The tower would not create or destroy items for the game world. However the tower can record and note accomplishments held within there. Of which the players, GMs etc... can gauge significance of. Whether the developers wish them to be prereqs for a merit badge, a settlement or company etc... could use it as a "trial" to determine a CC or individual's worthyness to join, etc...

It would not even kill the lore or gameplay for the existance of a player created location with a "starbucks" on every corner, because well this crazy guy just happened to envision something out of this world, and lore wise the illusions are nothing but people's dreams put onto a canvas.

I also agree, though I also have to make multiple notes, ones that I have made pretty much every time the topic of instanced dungeons come up.

1. Repeatable instanced dungeons, pretty much cannot have noteworthy rewards. Why? well no matter how we look at it, just basic math.

A. The bulk of players will always do what the most consistantly profitable action is.
B. Instanced dungeons are not intended to be the bread and butter of the game.
C. Every other portion of the game, is subject to scarcity, location, travel and organization challenges.

So... if we try to compare

Harvesting operation, search and find unclaimed harvesting location, return to town find and assemble harvesting group, carefully transport harvesting group, avoiding PVP and PVE hazards, protect harvesting group from PVP and PVE hazards as they gather, escort group safely back again dealing with PVP and PVE hazards.

Random spawning dungeon: pretty much the same procedure, only substitute harvesting group for adventuring group.

Escalation: Pretty similar again, only likely much less work to find, when they are available, but might not be available at all times.

When we compare all of that, to instanced dungeons, which essentially fold up to: Grab a group, most likely from people already at the enterance area, as it's a static predictable location so no supprises here, clear the dungeon from PVE only obstacles. Bring out the loot and you are set.

Essentially the big things that change, 1. Predictability, an instanced dungeon basically makes biting off more than you can chew ONLY fall into the realm of terrible planning. 2. A static location also eliminates half of the battle. 3. The static location also greatly lessens the PVE and PVP hazards of finding the location (if the big strong guilds are going there on a regular basis... you can pretty much assume they are going to clear out bandit's waiting on a regular basis.

Basically all these factors in mind, the reward from a dungoen like this, is either A. Going to be negligable, B. Going to overtake the rest of the content by a huge margain.

I would say GW would be best to err on the side of A. The goal of the game is a sandbox with theme park elements, not a theme park with a sandbox that nobody plays in.

The process Ryan described is not significantly different than applying for credit at your local furniture retailer. Also, it would only apply to a small percentage of players who are actually going to be at the top tiers of Settlement/Nation management. I believe there's already an expectation that the vast majority of players would never be asked for this information.

There is a HUGE difference. Your local furnature retailer has to go through tons of security checks, compliances, etc... to be able to opperate, and has tons of legal recourses if they do not comply, as well as liabilities to themselves if details are hacked, stolen etc...

The credit checking etc... A criminal hacker who discovered a list of SSN's saved in a google doc of a group of 100... that could be disasterous.

Kickstarter Update #16 wrote:

Crowdforger Alpha Additional Benefits

All Crowdforger Alpha backers will be given the opportunity to take part in monster casting for Pathfinder Online. Monster casting is a pool of players from which we will draw participants in various monster-based events in the campaign. Participants will be able to play the roles of the monsters needed for the campaign event and will be given direction by the Goblinworks staff on playing these monsters. Being in the monster casting pool is currently the only way that players will be able to play monsters while playing Pathfinder Online. This is a special privilege and not a right—if it is abused by a member of the monster casting pool, this privilege will be taken away.

Good news is: They already have plans for this! The other news is... it's currently the only way to get in on the action!! I really hope they 'elaborate' this in the future.

It is worth noting that, the limits of this are pretty direct. Monster players are going to be under direct orders by the DMs, so it won't quite be the same thing that OP was hoping for.

What also is worth noting for those who haven't backed. There is no such thing as a "good" race that is playable either. IE I highly doubt the existance of angelic races as player selected either. All currently probable races are alignment any. Tyranical humans, elfs and dwarves can be just as "monsterous" as a vampire or red dragon, if by monsterous you are meaning evil and likely to be in direct conflict with players on the side of good.

The flat power curve we have been told about could make lowbie zergs more likely than in Eve rather than less, all else being functionally equal.

Fortunately for those who want to play the game rather than be played, there are to be various inhibitors, at least according to my current grasp of the design.

The biggest difference is the difference in GW vs CCP's ideas on what they want. CCP flat out says props to those who get ahead via zerg tactics. GW says, if their mechanics allow that kind of behavior then their mechanics will change.

Even a flat power curve could be fairly easy to control. If it takes 2 weeks to reach point X where they could competently zerg, and 1 hour of zerging gets rep etc... to the point where a big red flag follows them around, anywhere moderately worth zerging they can expect to be killed by either an NPC guard, or PCs that can plainly see their actions have been deplorable. then the time/benefit ratio is pretty whack, and it isn't really worth many people's time to try and cause harm in this manner.

Then they can tweak the scales so that the older a character is, the more set he is... IE a 8 month old character, has a much harder time of drifting, it can get away with far more, but when he drifts, he still is out of luck in the same manner.

The biggest thing is, throwaway zergers time of fun, has to be made monumentally worse than their time of trashing, with that limiter in place, the harm they can do, is barely noticable.

GW has control of the scales, and can work to find the balance where legitimate PVPers can still play, but throwaway without consiquences is a lot of work for very little fun.

As someone who also kept reading material handy for resource gathering and crafting in several games, I think the boredom could be alleviated somewhat without impacting the war for resources.

The actual crafting is usually done in a safe place, so make the change there. Let the vulnerable, 'in the field' part be 90% of crafting.
Just 'smith at the mine' , no more watching a pixel pick swing 1000 times a month, instead you'll be looking over your shoulder for bandits as you craft the node to depletion.

We could use raw materials for repairs (and construction), so there would still be 'pure' gathering like every other game ... it would be a choice at the node, based on skills/gear and how long you think it will be before someone else shows up...

The one big issue with that, comes the part where that interferes with settlement structures being a large motivator in people leveling and growing their city. IE it is difficult (though not imposible) to explain and create a benefit to better crafting resources within a town... in the event that crafting isn't done in town.

The main thing I'm interested in as a question, rather than when/if linux development is intended. Is can the development team say with any rough degree of accuracy. Is there any knowledge of whether the client is going to be using any technologies that are known to not work with wine. IE many games fail to launch due to a launcher made based on a .net framework, or gameguard equivelants etc... (even those I do aknowledge there's a good portion of them that do work in wine... based on the fact that WoW does, despite their warden software)

I do fully aknowledge that even if nothing you use is known for incompatibilities with wine that isn't a certainty, and I also am aknowledging that what you are planning on developing with, may change many times over the course of development, but it still would be nice to get a vague gauge of the possibility

Will the Settlement Management structure prevent one person from having total control?

What happens if a settlement founder goes inactive, but does not pass on the torch?

From my understanding there will be multiple options of government. I would imagine a one man holds all the power dictatorship, would be unpopular for precisely this reason. Though I'm sure they will also offer some sort of either option or automatic requirement to pass the torch after a certain amount of time of inactivity.

So we have have to roll play all our characters the same? While I will be an assassin, my destinies twin will be a TN or even NG crafter/gatherer. So, lets say that the two settlements they are both involved in enter conflict. I continue to play both with just as much devotion; my Assassin taking out targets, and my crafter supplying gear for my assassins enemies. After the war is over, it is discovered that the 2 characters are in fact both mine. Cries of espionage and deception will be heard. Maybe even enough that GW hears of it, and they ban my account. I have done nothing wrong though, i truly tried to win the war from both sides. My crafter vs my assassin.

I don't see anything reasonable there. I'd love a policy that did outlaw meta information of accounts, but I just can't imagine it being enforcable.

In the scenerio you mention I do not consider anything wrong... Unless your assasain clearly launches an attack against your crafter's supply chain, specifically at the timing that because of your crafter's knowledge, you were able to make a big jump foward.

Of course the issue lies in this is completely un-provable. Just like in P&P when the DM leaves a map with a symbol drawn on it where a trap is, and the player reaches the spot... and calls "I'm going to look very hard for traps here". the DM has no ability to discern whether, A. the player is cheating and using symbol to know there is a trap, or B. The character would have looked for a trap there. The presense of the symbol makes it imposible to determine whether, your assasain launched the attack because his gut feeling was it was a good time, or because as a crafter, he knew every detail of what armor his opponents were wearing, and planned his own gear as the perfect counter.

Of course all of that is moot, there is no definition that can work. We cannot differentiate between Joe the guy with 5 characters, or Joe the guy with 4 brothers who live in the same house, all being paid with the same father's credit card.

I personally would be a huge fan of multiple alts etc... for spying being banned... It would give way to the potential for actual spying mechanics being plausible.

but it just isn't feasable, and too many innocents would be shot down in the crossfire.

HalfOrc with a Hat of Disguise wrote:

And I'd argue that Seoni is borderline porn...

Really? I just browsed images of Seoni and I have to say I didn't get that impression at all. I can see how someone would call Red Sonja "borderline porn", but I'm really not getting it with Seoni...

The greater debate of course is things that in the pathfinder books were present, but not detailed in the books. Basically leaving room for DM discression or player actions in terms of how things went. IE kingmaker, you could build a brothel.

In addition, one thing I do have to note... saying it has the same restrictions as pathfinder modules then saying depictions of violence, references to sex etc... as imposible, isn't exactly the most accurate thing
Carnival of tears contains fairly notable mentions of a person killing a woman's husband then taking her, prostitution, and very extreme explicit violence, both in text and to some extent in the illustrations.

avari3 wrote:

AvenaOats wrote:

Would a company be a training company: With a high turn-over of new recruits graduating under the regular instructors, in a settlement?

LOL. The Menudo Company. Once they hit a certain level they kicked out.

That's a valid concern. When players leave a company (or get kicked out because they haven't played in a week), does it lose influence? Might some of the influence they gained with company #1 move with them to company #2? Might that encourage start-ups or spin-offs?

Or could influence be transferable? Maybe not a lossless transfer, but what if the settlement training company could gift/sell influence to other companies within the settlement, or even allied/friendly companies. Maybe at a 25% loss, so the training company loses 100 influence and the other company gains 75 influence. That would have a similar effect of encouraging spin-offs that meet the losing company's approval.

Actually yeah that could be a very notable issue. I recall DDO had a huge problem with that when they introduced their guild leveling system... IE the leading power on at least one server, was a group of maybe 5 people for the longterm, the rest of their slots were spent grabbing up every noob they could get their hands on... and in general people in for more than a week were booted. (as after a week they were either past the point of super fast rep gain, or too inactive to be of worth)

The key difference there is the number of points of interaction. In buying an item direct from the cash shop there are 0 points of player interaction. In buying a goblin ball to sell to another player for coin, then using that coin to buy a desired item, there are 6 points of player interaction with a potential of a whole lot more through company and opposition activities.

With the supercap example, yes, you can use plex to get isk to buy minerals and have them shipped to the destination station. I've done that. So what's the difference between that and simply buying the minerals for cash that you spent on the plex and having it delivered direct to the station? The difference is enormous. By directly injecting materials into the economy, completely obviating the miners and refiners typically needed to generate those materials. As this forms the basis of the entire economic structure you are, in essence, rotting the core rather than supporting it.

This I 100% agree with. The process of trading goblin balls, does not in any way shape or form take anyone out of the equasion. In the event of selling goblin balls for resources, the only market that is really crushed, is the goblin ball market. Harvesters, miners etc... will make a killing, as while the baller keeps buying their goods as soon and as high as they price it, they are going to keep producing with more enthusiasm than ever before. Settlements also will be fine... odds are they have teams doing most of their harvesting anyway. Coin earners... yup the value of coin is going up as well.

So yeah... the only market really devastatingly effected in that case... is goblin balls... more people are playing as f2p thanks to the baller. Resources become in slightly lower supply as many groups are delivering their "Excess" to the baller, but odds are the smartest settlements begin aranging for a good portion of their excess to be traded directly with other settlements to meet all of their needs.

[/small mostly off topic rant] This is a good example of why I've always hated the word "race" when referring to different types of humans IRL. We're not different races, we're different colors and different physical characteristics. However, with a very tiny percentage or exception identical genetically. Hell, Chimpanzees are a different species and they're only 4% different than us. I'm guessing the most genetically divergent human are a most .001 percent genetically different. "Race" is just the wrong word. We need a new one. [/end rant]

I think what you mean is how Species-ist should an NPC be? It's fantasy. I say if an NPC hates elves or dwarves go for it.

Well... it gets more muddled than that when we talk a fantasy world

Species, Noun: "a group of living organisms consisting of similar individuals capable of exchanging genes or interbreeding. The species is the principal natural taxonomic unit, ranking below a genus and denoted by a Latin binomial, e.g., Homo sapiens ."

The existance of half-elves, would make elves and humans by definition the same "species".

Of course what is really complicated, is when we factor in things like "half dragons" etc... which would make absolutely no sense on a taxonomic standpoint. It is pretty much assumed that they are created via a dragon polymorphing into the race it intends to breed with, but at that point, either A. The genetics material does not change, and thus offspring cannot be produced, or B. The genetic material changes, in which case the child would not be part dragon. C. The genetic makeup between dragons and the traditional races is actually astonishingly similar and once you take out the minor issue of organs fitting the issue is solved.

To some extent, in fantasy universes, to some extent fantasy authors move to a general system of, if sentiant organisms reproductive organs can fit, they can produce offspring. Which is pretty far from the way the real world works, and completely destroys any way to use real world taxonomics to define the difference between things.

I suppose MST3K's mantra applies here, Just repeat to yourself it's just a game, you should really just relax.

Ryan Dancey wrote:

We don't intend to have an MTX counterpart for every item in the game. Most of the MTX counterparts for player character crafted goods should not have a role to play in territorial control. (An infinite supply of MTX-purchased mounts should not have any meaningful effect on a battle for territory. If it does, we'll put a stop to it.)

I take it mounts are planned to be implemented as 'disposables' rather than permanent 'summon mount' abilities then. Great news!

Hate to tell you this, but it sounds to me like he's saying the exact oposite there. If mounts were intended to be disposables, than having 500 mounts per player would be an advantage over someone who has 10 per player. While summoned permanant mounts, having 1 per player is equal to having 10,000 per player.

Before an objection that this could be minor is raised, I've personally seen people dump thousands of dollars into their war chest for this very purpose, to startling effect. It took a month for the region to stabilize again. Buying goblin balls for cash, selling them for coin, and using that coin to disrupt the economy is one thing. Buying thousands of swords, armor, etc for cash and dumping them onto the market is another. While the former affects the items in question, the latter afflicts the items, the intermediate materials, and the resources involved. This is because the MTX items would be injecting new, albeit consumed, material into the system. With any kind of reprocessing ability you could simply buy the highest compression item in bulk, reprocess it, and crash the materials market.

I would say that anything in the cash shop, is to be understood as viable for extreme and instantanious deflation. Based on ryan's reasoning for direct opposition to the idea of directly buying coin etc... I would assume they would also be aware not to include anything that is, or can be broken down into, anything that is expected to have a stable economic value. If they include mounts in the cash shop, expect the mount market to be subject to the prices dropping by 50-75% overnight.d. Cash shop items are inherantly unpredictable in value and may lead to crazy unpredictable results

@ Onishi

Faction conflict in Pathfinder RPG is meaningful based on supporting the lore of the setting. Faction conflict is usually based on conflict between two or more Deities. To suggest that such conflicts that trickle down to mere mortals is meaningless is to suggest that the Dieties and their respective Alignment differences are likewise meaningless.

GW has said that to participate fully in faction warfare, a character must show a certain amount of dedication to it. It is not until they reach level 3 in a faction will they be able to engage other opposing factions without out consequences to their alignment / reputation. That level of dedication is only achieved through focused and meaningful PvP.

Consequences for PvP do not give PvP meaning. The purpose / motivation for PvP is what gives it meaning. You can have meaningful PvP without negative consequences, for the winner, and it still be meaningful PvP. It is only if you remove the reasons for PvP or the consequences of losing PvP, that you end up with meaningless PvP.

I'm way late to respond to this, as I kind of forgot about this thread, and haven't fully caught up, but I figured I'd explain my point a bit deeper. The issue is there's a lack of long term consequences, unless you define disposable gear that you are expected to lose often as meaningful somehow.

A settlement divvying for control of a harvesting source, conquest, etc... is pretty meaningful. Bandit's and their continual arms and strategy against cargo runs, is also pretty meaningful. The biggest thing is, both have means to an end at some point. The merchants get some bounty hunters and drive the bandits away from route X, or the bandit's arrange a payment plan for the merchants to pay not to be robbed. Settlements and nations fall, or arrange peace. Longterm there is an end goal that they are fighting for, even if it is never reached, the fact that it is there, adds a meaning to the conflict.

A war between the gods, or between any NPC characters that never reach the foreground, and never changes beyond some sort of point system they reward their followers in. Can factions rise and fall? Can their friends/enemies change? Does Joe killing bob, have any impact at all to anything in the world besides Joe and Bob's gear and faction rep? If the answer is no to those questions, I have a hard time calling it "meaningful".

Onishi,

I'm not sure why you included that portion from my post. In the portion you quoted, I was merely acknowledging that the bulk of players will be playing "the game" much the way the game mechanics are designed for the game to be played (spending much of their time involved in skill gain, killing mobs, crafting, etc.). The real point of my position is that we need to find time for all the wonderful things you mention during the slower times (hopefully even during some of the busier times).

If you meant to point out that even when we're playing the game as expected that there's still time for RP and player made events, content, etc., that's my hope and thus the reason for the thread...to try to network people who like to provide that content.

So it struck me that you seem to be disagreeing with me ("Not necessarily..."), when your argument seems to actually supports my position. :)

I wasn't just specifying that there can be downtime etc... for roleplaying, and doing things that are more or less purely social and not related to killing/crafting. I was actually describing that there are times in which that will "optimal" even by power gamer standards.

3 key components in PFO that give it more potential than most modern MMO's are,
1. Skill/XP grind is removed altogether.
2. Harvested resources + escalations will vary in availability. IE there may be days that your work is worth 5x more than average, and days it barely is worth your time even bothering to try.
3. Even the most advanced nation, is going to have high dependance on relationships with other nations near and far. Mithral supply dried up for miles, I hope you have a good relationship with the nations that have it, attack approaching, you probably hope your neighboring alliances are motivated to assist.

As a result, at least in my opinion. A settlement that sent 50 members to attend the neighboring cities wedding ceremony, may very well have a solid advantage over the settlement that focuses 24/7 on grinding the best loot.

So yeah to summerize, my point isn't that it is going to be possible, I'm saying in many ways, it may flat out be "optimal".

Thank you for the compliment. 90% sounds pretty good. :)

However, I'll still have to humbly disagree, at least in part. I'm very realistic about what most people will spend the majority of their time doing, and what they will view as a "productive" expenditure during that game time. Certainly, people will spend the majority of their time building skills, harvesting, crafting, strengthening their settlement, etc., and if you don't, there is the possibility you could fall behind your competitors. But your description of what will matter in the game sounds a bit too much like "here's the way you need to play to win and if you don't do it this way, you're falling behind"...to the point that we won't have time for anything else but a perpetual grind in preparation for constant attack.

Not necessaraly. People who play games certainly do so to have fun, and making relationships of all sorts, has a huge impact on the profitability etc... as well the skill training system etc... will lower the grinding, but there will of course be a high need for monster hunters etc... looking for a good score of loot, harvesters etc. There will almost certainly be times in which gathering resources will be at a below average rate. Those will be the time that people will find higher value in the social arts, making sure to have allies, assistance for when a huge harvesting oprotunity arises or an attack is impending etc...

Just like the real world. In business during the slower times, you'll find lots of executives, agents etc... doing things that on one aspect are a waste of company resources to stregnthen relationships. Companies taking different people out golfing, or to a fancy resteraunt or whatever to help solidify longterm business. If there are activities that are more enjoyable but less "reward" for the settlement, they will not be completely ignored by succesful organizations.

Onishi wrote:

IE if it starts out seeming that a 100.00 item is the necessary item to play competitively, then next week they add a 200 item that blows the first one away etc... that is pay to win.

I think that's an extremely useful definition. In essence, the "pay-to-win" game requires ever-increasing expenses in order to continue to be competitive.

A secondary thing I would say that can do it, is specifically consumables that are unlimited in potential. IE no notable cooldown etc... IE a guy with 35 will outlast a guy with 25, and the guy with 50 longest still. In some games it gets to the point where it's like... how about we just show eachother our bank accounts, leave the money in it but declare a winner. Save us both the time and money of playing.

Just curious, but does the ability to spend $1,400 on a set of irons mean that Golf is "pay to win"?

I realize I am a bit late to respond to this, but I would say not quite. Golf is an expensive game, with a very high entry barrier, and yes to play proffesionaly it is assumed that the highest dollar clubs are a pre-req to even consider playing at that level. However they also have a solid cap, someone who develops the R&D to develop clubs designed to be better than the expensive clubs that you have to use to play competitively, isn't likely going to be allowed to use them in tournament play. At least in my view, I don't consider it pay to win if the company is honest, makes a very clear cap on what is the cost to play competitively, and they don't raise that bar. IE if it starts out seeming that a 100.00 item is the necessary item to play competitively, then next week they add a 200 item that blows the first one away etc... that is pay to win.

If tommorow GW were to explain that their training system requires $100 a day, that would not shift PFO into pay to win category, it would shift it to, holy crap that's an expensive barrier to play competitively.

I have to admit I'm a bit skeptical on the idea of NPC faction warfare... I do want pvp, often and strong... but faction to me seems in the range of meaningless PVP. I consider WoW's PVP and pretty much any other faction based game as obnoxious. Is there an accomplishment to killing someone besides a raise in your side's honor kills and your own personal rep going up a few points.

Maybe it will be different, maybe factions will at least be able to vote and elect who their enemy is, whether to stay enemies etc... I preffer my wars to have the illusion of an end, a goal of peace, but rather they start as often or more often than they end. IE take the entire political structure of the world. Wars end, former friends are now enemies, former enemies are now friends, the structure changes. Compared to say WoW... In which alliance and horde have meaninglessly hated eachother, with absolutely no motivation, care or reason, for well over a decade. Do they expect any change in dispositions over the life of the game, nope.

Being wrote:

My initial recommendation is that given there will be such a thing as 'backstab', character facing will have to be quantified...

Pathfinder tabletop doesn't have backstabbing or facing. It has sneak attacking, which has a different set of qualifiers.

quite true, though I do also note, many of the qualifiers may or may not be possible. Without seeing combat in action, we can't make any assumptions on flanking. We know initiative isn't going to be in existance, so, the freebie to supprise round + first initative is going to be gone. Admitted the technical difficulties of either factoring in facing direction, or making combat in a way that facing or flanking are possible is well beyond me. I do suppose you would have a much better idea than I would on that though

I think you should let your players play their game.

If someone can come up with a racial that breaks the game, stand up. Let's hear it.

I would say this post is a result of the regular, Paizo's forums popping up PFO threads into the recent posts lists, and people not realizing the topic is related to PFO and not the TTRPG. No reason to pay it much attention as it is a common mistake.

If team B is experienced this is not the case. If team A is inexperienced it will also not be true unless Team B is just as inexperienced. If both are inexperienced it is a toss up. If both are very experienced it will be a toss up. The difference is made in experience, communication, organization, and situational awareness.

I partially agree, in the sense of experienced within the context of working with each-other. The key is specialization, drastically reduces all of the obsticals when it comes to communication, organization, planning etc...

If team B, is all experienced veterans, know the game very well inside out and backwards, but has little foreknowledge of the playstyle, abilities etc... of the other members of their team. Team B will most likely lose to a less experienced version of team A. Simply due to team A, automatically starting with a general understanding of what each member on their team is going to focus on.

In a scenerio in which say both teams have a half hour to pick their plans, strategies etc... team B, who is experienced players, that have no idea what eachothers builds are, is going to be spending the first 15 minutes figuring out "ok does anyone have an ability to break enchantments? No? OK who is going to equip break enchantment, OK now poisons, who is going to be able to do poisons?". Being able to know your teams roles, and know there's an 95% chance they have everything related to those skills equiped and ready for you, is a HUGE boost to communication, and strategy.

Now if Team A and B, have both been working as a team for 6 months, and thus team B has came up with a means to ensure every aspect needed is covered, has an idea of what is going where etc... Team B probably has an advantage, that I concede. Team A's style however, has an ENORMOUS advantage when it comes to ad-hoc parties, or anything short of groups that are always the same people working together every time.

and again, all of this is before we factor in things like, gear requirements, IE some abilities that work better with certain gear etc... Time spent switching between a great club, spellbook and dagger, as well as the increased cost of death if you are decked out in such a way.

Ignoring stats, gear, etc... There's 3 parts of being experienced.

1. Know the game. Know every aspect of what move counters what move, what tactics beat what tactics etc..., this is part of the battle.

2. Know your enemy. Knowing what tactics your enemy is likely to use, what the makeup of their team is, what abilities they are likely to come at you with and when etc...

3. Know your allies. Know what their party makeup is, what tactics your allies are going to use, and when to effectively combo in, be able to differentiate between when your ally needs help, when he's got everything covered, etc...

No amount of time playing alone, playing in a different team etc... is going to give you a head start into 3, and IMO 3 is probably one of the biggest parts of being "experienced". Specialization is kind of easy mode for 3. Admitted, it does give a drawback in that your enemy earns an advantage towards 2. Which is also why I conceded that in the event that group B, has had a significant amount of experience in working with each-other, they gain the advantage as a whole. But are still at a significant disadvantage with little prior knowledge of eachother, and considering that in an MMO, peoples schedules etc... do not likely wind up with you having the exact same team mates every time. Scenerios of group A's, will have the edge more often than group b's.

Onishi wrote:

I wouldn't necessarily say that is because of cultural prejudices, rather than the nature of team games. Solo, it doesn't matter what the heck you do, and a good versatility is very helpful, but in a group, to maximize potential you need to know what your team is doing.

That is organization, not specialization.

It is both... Having people fulfill a specialized role, is a method of organization, and the easiest one to accomplish at that, and to the best of my knowledge, the only means to organize a group that does not require hours of training and learning to solidly fall into a line in which the team can predict what the other members of the team are going to do.

Lets take a hypothetical world in which specialization was 100% untrainable, everyone can heal, everyone can do physical and ranged DPS at 100% equal capacity,

If say we put 2 teams of 10 against eachother, both had 10 minutes of time to prep, and meet eachother etc... Both were complete strangers at the start.

In team A. The group leader looks at the group and says "OK jimmy, you focus on healing and removing debuffs, Bob, focus on applying the debuffs, Tim you focus on cutting the line and dealing mellee DPS etc... If your role seems to be unnecessary at the time, then cover a secondary role, but first and foremost make sure your task is taken care of at any given time. While everyone is a generalist, the team is treating everyone as a specialist for strategic benefit.

Team B's strategy is: OK everyone, we're all generalists, so just use whatever seems to be most useful at the time.

Team A will almost certainly steamroll team B. 9 out of 10 times, because team B, will have far more times in which either everyone attemps to cover the same thing at the same time, and misses out, or times in which everyone thinks "someone else will handle X" at the same time

Now lets take it further, closer to PFO. We have skills to be equiped, armor and weapon choices etc... All that can make someone better at one particular task, and sometimes at the expense of other tasks. It is still going to come out more beneficial in most situations, for a team to pick say someone wearing gear that helps his healing and defense skills and someone with high magic skills, gear to boost the magic, someone with heavy armor heavy weapons etc... vs a team of generalists, wearing medium armor who are good at everything. Unless the team of generalists have been working together hours a day for months, there is almost no way they can be expected to realistically work well as a cohesive group, and once we realize that the groups are almost inevitably going to be working in roles, it only makes sense that having a role at 70%, when grouping, is more valuable than having 11 roles at 20%, even if the difference between 20% and 70% us barely 15-20% better in performance. Oh and I nearly forgot, capstones... a specific bonus for training 1 role a certain distance, that is only applicable while you have only that role active.

Hence my point, specialization, is a means of organization. Not the only means of organization by any regard, but it is to my knowledge the only means of organization, that can take someone from just met the party, to able to predict what every member of the party is going to do with 95% accuracy, in 5 minutes flat.

Basically the easiest summery of the plan they have (people before me have given all the tools to find the information, but I'm going to try to sum it up into an easier to skim and understand form that also makes sense to people who have never played or know the basics of eve's plex system)

Durring early enrollment (IE the closed section for people who contributed to the game development), it will essentially be subscription based.

After open enrollment, it will be free to play, but for free, your character will not gain any experience, unless you buy training time, in one of 3 ways. (Quick summery by the way, when you have training time, you gain XP at a set rate, regardless of what your character is doing, you are either gaining at 100% or 0% potential, there is no way to gain faster than 100%, nor as far as planned, at less than 100%)

1. Pay for a subscription.
2. Buy training time from the cash shop al a carte. IE you can most likely buy a days, weeks, or months worth of training time individually, instead of a subscription.
3. Buy training time with in game money and resources. Basically even paid subscribers have the option to do 2 and get excess training time, in which they can sell for in game resources to other players. Someone with absolutely 0 RL funds, can work in game to buy this training time from other players, the price of this in in game resources will be subject to supply and demand). This allows people who have tons of real life cash, but low real life time, to basically hire you to get them stuff they don't have the time to do, in exchange the player with excess real life time, but no real life money, can have his training time paid for by someone else, for in game tasks. Now how the supply and demand laws are going to influence this is a mystery, possibly 20 hours of in game earning will buy you a months subscription, or it could be the equivelant of hundreds of in game hours. It all depends on how many players are buying excess time and want to sell it, vs how many people are hoping to play for free and intending to buy it. If there are more people selling excess time and fewer hoping to play for free, then it should be fairly easy to earn, if there are tons of people trying to buy, but only a handful of people spending the money to buy excess time, then you could be looking at free players only feasibly being able to train 10% as often as a subscribed player.

Yeah... Ground targeted AoEs is kind of a standard. Removing that seriously nerfs the effectiveness of AoEs as it's quicker to throw one down in the area you want then pinpoint the character closest to the center of that area. If there even is a character centered there.

I imagine in pfo, aoe's will be more of a niche, than a wizards bread and butter as they are in standard MMORPGs. Based on friendly fire rules etc... I see them being used mainly for the initial attack before the mellees lock into eachother, after that, unless say you've stacked your whole party in favor of it (IE heavy fire resist gear and going to plummet your allies with fireballs etc...) Unless you have a scenerio in which you're ally's are immune, I don't see a whole lot of practicality in them, regardless of character or ground targeting. (with latency + cast time, the old fashioned P&P line up the aoe behind the enemy so that it stops between the enemy and the guy he's locked into combat with 5' away ain't happening no matter what, either your information is going to be lagged just enough so that you'll be a few feet off, or they will move while you are performing the action etc...

You know, it might be part of the problem that pursuant to cultural prejudices specialization is overly emphasized and generalization is gimpy. The focus on min-maxed specialists for the sake of relative power goes hand-in-hand with political polarization, expectations of entitlement (expecting something for really nothing), and similar illnesses.

I wouldn't necessarily say that is because of cultural prejudices, rather than the nature of team games. Solo, it doesn't matter what the heck you do, and a good versatility is very helpful, but in a group, to maximize potential you need to know what your team is doing. If someone takes damage, and all 4 members of the team stop what they are doing and start healing him and he starts healing himself, well 4 of the members are just overhealing, and the groups offense offense just completely halted. Solid use of team play, involves being able to know exactly what everyone else is doing, which either involves working with the group nonstop to the point where you can predict who is going to do what at all times, or without that investment, people are assigned roles so they can think, OK X has got this covered, I need to focus on my responsibility. If all the roles are covered, than it is still useful to have one generalist in the group who can see what role isn't quite able to keep up with what's being thrown out if I step up to the plate and aid in this area, things will be smoother, of course in that case, we are still looking at a 5 specialists to 1 generalist ratio needed, and in general generalists tend to draw the most people, and 3/4ths of the time groups tend to not want them due to the fact that players who can actually read and correctly asses what is currently needed.

And that's before noting the fact that in most games and most environments, someone specialized in X can generally do more in the same time than 2 generalists. It still has full merit under the assumption that everyone can do everything equally well.

Here are the PnP stats for Humans, Elves, and Dwarves:

Humans:
- +2 racial bonus to one ability score of their choice
- Base Speed: Humans have a base speed of 30 feet.

Elves:
- +2 Dexterity, +2 Intelligence, and –2 Constitution.
- Base Speed: Elves have a base speed of 30 feet.

Dwarves:
- +2 Constitution, +2 Wisdom, and –2 Charisma.
- Base Speed: (Slow and Steady) Dwarves have a base speed of 20 feet, but their speed is never modified by armor or encumbrance.

I think these can pretty much directly translate to PfO, obviously converting the +2 to whatever equivalent along the way. In the system as currently described, a bonus to stats only serves to allow faster gain of prereqs required to get higher end abilities. Since everyone is starting out with the same stats before racial mods, the difference between an elf getting to use Rapid Shot and a dwarf using the same ability is just a matter of the dwarf having to invest in other lower dexterity based abilities before they have enough dexterity to qualify for the prereq for Rapid Shot. Alternatively, dwarves will probably end up having the same advantage with divine spell prereqs as elves do with dexterity based skills (and arcane spell prereqs because of the +2 intelligence). Humans can select which stat they like best at character creation, as in the PnP system.

I see no problem with this, and I also see no problem with the dwarven movement penalty and subsequent encumbrance buff. This will come in handy for people hauling stuff between settlements or from a resource node, but since they'll be moving slower than everyone else when not carrying loads of stuff I feel like it's balanced.

Once you get into non-core races, you start to get wonky with balancing, but that's years down the road and as with every other system, I have faith that the GW team can make it work in a balanced way.

tl;dr: core race bonuses from PnP can, for the most part, be directly translated into the PfO system in a balanced way.

Those are indeed the ones that translate with little to no problem.

But the question comes in how you handle the others, if at all

IE dwarves, darkvision, stonecutting, bonuses when fighting orcs, giants etc...

Elves +2 to overcome Magic resistance, immunity to sleep, and bonus to resist normal magic.

Balancing that against humans, is going to be a challenge.

Unless of course, all of the racial abilities are trainable etc... and the races start with a head start in them. Namely because for the most part, human's bonus being to the trainable skills (free skill points/feats), most every idea I've seen to explain that, is that it will be bonus XP. Which is something that is going to degrade in value the longer the character exists. Meanwhile a +2 to resist enchantments, is going to be extremely valuable in the event that it brings them over the maximum a human can reach, and will leave a 3 year in dwarf or elf, notably superior to a 3 year in human.

I understand the way that open source detects more bugs; I'm asking why the expected security contribution from allowing independent white hats to review the code is greater than the security deficit caused by giving grey and black hats direct access; I don't expect the black hats to share the vulnerabilities they find, I expect them to exploit them.

I suspect that the incentive structure is such that more vulnerabilities will be discovered and exploited than are discovered and patched- even considering a bounty system offered for such vulnerabilities.

Well in some cases, I would say the black hats having the code and getting exploits in early on isn't a bad thing either. We all know, eventually things are going to get used, exploited etc... and the dev's most likely are going to have a good bunch of them in which they have to re-actively patch. Ignoring the pro-active benefits, which is worse. Black hats taking advantage of 6 key exploits in month 2 of EE, with a roleback and patches in month 3, or exploits being discovered in month 9, 11, 12, 14, 18 and 19 of the games life. In addition to fixing a less finalized code, the sooner the exploit hits, the less code that might be built on top of the exploits (which makes patching them far less difficult and intrusive)

In financial industry, or a widely used operating system, there is the 0 day market, which black hat hackers may make more use of, IE hanging on to the exploit for months or years, either to sell to a high bidding hacker, or waiting for themselves to have the technology to take advantage of to 100% maximize their profit from the exploit. In an MMO though, there's a pretty limited value for exploits. Beyond a gold duping exploit to open an illegal gold selling site, there isn't much profit to be made beyond a short term advantage that may as well be used as soon as you find it. Which once it is being used, that pushes it to the forefront of the developers as well as the white hat hackers who might want to figure out a patch.

Again though, it is all moot. GW couldn't make the game open source if it were all gain and no loss, because at least from my understanding, they only actually own 25% or so of the actual code of what they are using. For the most part, their "code", is tying together different assets of which they have licensed. (not to depreciate the technical feat that is, but it is very little asset to a hobbyist coder).

Essentially, that's what makes me so leery of statements like "I'm going to play a cleric, and I'll never train any wizard skills." Eventually many people will end up proficient in a variety of roles. Again, don't try to train fighter, cleric, wizard, thief, crater and noble in equal measure during EE. You'll wind up equally terrible at everything. On the other hand, in a long-lived game, one- or two-level dips into skills that aren't on your current training plan may end up coming in handy during Year 2, or Year 5.

One thing I imagine, there will be no shortage of people who will stick with one "role" Though I imagine each role will have a good deal of paths. IE I imagine no shortage of people who say I will always play a wizard, and follow through on that. I expect however for "I will always focus on conjuration, or evocation. To be flavors that those people will indeed change between.

At least I expect the general gist of training a new role like one switches out, to be a much more annoying task, vs taking a new path in a role, and I do very much hope, roles have a good deal of potential paths (whether officially, or just builds and abilities that can greatly modify the results).

DeciusBrutus wrote:

Sure. Just tell your members where the kill line is.

Telling others where the kill line is is optional, but highly recommended.

If it is tied to a structure (almost universally), the "kill line" is known to all.

I would imagine that every settlement would leave their seat of power, the Settlement Hall, "closed to the public". Allowing access to it for just a select few or during special events.

I'm not really sure the practicality of a kill line, unless settlements are darn near huge.

No matter what, I would assume a NRDS settlement, would still be ready to tear appart any unknowns developing into a formation, or operating siege weaponry, unless that is what we are reffering to as the kill line, rather than where in the settlement they are going. Unless settlements are frickin huge, the idea of groups being non-threatening in the market place, but threatening when they step towards the town hall is a bit of an oddity to me. Considering at least from my general understanding the general idea of NBSI isn't when they step where they can physically start damaging things, but rather a pretty significant buffer zone for you to take them out before their damage starts. Maybe it's just me, but I fail to see a whole lot of difference in reaction time between the enemy has grouped up and began their attack from the market place. to the enemy has grouped up and started their attack in down town, at least under my guesstimates of settlement sizes, etc... that's a nearly negligible change in reaction time.

On the other hand, when we go into player nations, I could see opportunity there. IE this settlement is our ambassador zone. People are all welcome to visit this city, browse the market, chat with our representatives about getting a permit to go visit a nearby settlement with training facility access etc... Our military development, high level crafting facilities etc... are 2 settlements away, if this one falls, no big deal, and we have a military force nearby to retake it if it happens.

One concept of the game is three parts

the server,
the client ,
the interface between the two.

Exploits (hackers address all three, but the last two are evident on the players machine for reverse engineering).

Consider.

The server is very proprietary, esp. with all the player specific information.

The interface is 'proprietary' but is subject to monitoring the traffic.

Why not publish that and allow the net to point out vulnerabilities. Note this information allows some to send messages faster that the normal client.

Limit messages and use advanced encryption controls to limit messages under other names.

Some time after OE, the hackers, and skanks will have this figured out. Without publishing, this will be a route to hacking system. Publishing earlier world allow community to detect problem. (Sorry I am too far out of S/w dev to really know how to do this. One way or another this will get out to all or to just those most intending to hack the system.]

The client eventually needs to be open source. There will be clients which are not official, but get users advantages from the point of view. Goblin Works can not even imagine hat those interests are. But the server needs to be fixed and controlling of bandwidth of inputs from client.

Open source clients will gain advantages of having a bigger development/testing teams.

Interface will also benefit from same benefits.

Open source can lead to earlier detection and resolution of issues.

I am not sure you r are ready for public servers, but public clients and interfaces can deliver a better product. (with bandwidth limitation on interface, including denial of those exceeding limits.

I would provide better detail, but I am 12 years out of S/W dev.

Lam

The issue with open source in large scale projects like MMORPG's, lies directly in the portion of, no one group is in position to make the decision to make it open source. PFO is a project involving unity, and I'm sure a few other licensed commodities. GW doesn't have the authority to open unity's source code, and I wouldn't be supprised if there were a few other components that they are working on or with in which they also don't have the rights.

Ryan himself is more or less one who understands the benefits of open development. He created the Open gaming license, which basically did to table top RPG books, what open source does for software (IE permits other people to develop using the rules creatures etc... without having to skirt around copyrights). But when it comes to legality, you can't give away what you don't own.

I still haven't found the quote, but what I remember is that you'll be able to see if you've grouped with someone before, and what you did together. You'll also be able to see if someone's killed you.

IMO there's a notable difference between a general log when you investigate X's name that says

10/27 4:30 PM - Joined party with X
10/27 4:52 PM - X attacked you, you were killed in the conflict

Versus an easily organized statsheet of
Kills of X ##
Kills of Y ##
Kills of Z ##

That is either publicly view-able, or easily screenshot-able.

etc...

The former has a huge practical value, IE say you join or recruit a team for one of those multiple entrance dungeons, run into a second party, vaguely recognize someone who you are pretty sure back stabbed you in the past, but aren't 100% sure if it's the same guy, you check the log of you're and his interactions, and confirm you did indeed have conflict on your last meeting.

I am not aware of any culture where the youth in the culture are frequently and casually exposed to sex acts.

I believe under current definitions hideouts are planned to have their own sites, which is subject to change. I would say it is unlikely that a hideout sight will be the same as a sight will be the same type as a fort or watchtower/inn sight, and it will most likely take specialized skills to find the sights to begin with.

On a logical level to me it wouldn't make sense for hideouts to be a shared type that could house an inn etc... due to 1. hideout space being desired to be hidden, I don't think they intend for hideouts to be solvable via process of elimination. IE "didn't there used to be an inn build spot here, there must be a hideout here instead now".

They'll probably still avoid it. US culture is fundamentally broken in that way, when casual violence is considered acceptable game material while the same doesn't apply to simple nudity, let alone references to sex.

The irony of course, is when you look at female clothing in the average MMORPG, an MMO with nudity would be a shock. Yet an MMO in which women wear pasties and a gstring, is another tuesday.

Personally I think were going to be seeing lots of roleplaying characters, not just minmaxers. Then again, I can be a bit overly optimistic about such things, so Ill have to wait and see.

The big problem we run into, unless there is somehow a means to properly distribute roleplayers and min-maxers into the same settlements, we have an inherent problem. Namely provided a hypothetical optimistic case of 50/50 RP/MinMax ratio (realistically almost MMO's are lucky to get a 10/90 ratio, and that's without PVP raising the incentive of MinMax),

We can very quickly run into an issue of Min Maxers forming X settlements, RPers forming Y settlements, and the min-maxers continuing to push shove and bully RPers to the point of quitting or changing.

IMO the best optimal solution to this issue, all lies in balance. Namely the often forgotten about group that can do both. IE pick out a flavor, style of character to RP, then calculate out an optimal build that accomplishes all of those goals. With unlimited potential skill etc... we don't have the tabletop issue of Mastering craft basketweaving means that I will not be able to maximize my skillpoints in stealth, etc... So I suspect we will be able to have a good deal of potential in flavor builds that have the potential to be "min/maxed" to create unique and effective characters.

Provided GW doesn't fall into the traditional MMO trap of making some skills distinctively stronger than alternatives, there are perks to being the road less traveled. Namely the arms race, IE the flavor of the week is fire spells, everyone and their grandmother is a pyromancer, Oh... but everyone knows pyromancers are the majority, looks like armies are preparing fire resistant gear, making the select few who specialize in ice magic much more effective.

Your response has nothing to do with my point of curiosity. My curiosity is based on the assumption that the Good Settlement wants to become a nation, and not becoming a nation, is not one of their options.

Would the desire to become a nation, outweigh the desire to be "Good" as an alignment? Or would they decide, it is more important to be good and limited to this space, and not have a nation state?

As a basis for discussing an PvP Introductory Guide, is it not valuable to discuss the various types of PvP and the motivations for them?

We also forget more options good has beyond "you are in my way of our desire to progress northward, join us or perish".

There is also

We need to progress northward, you are in our way, if you do not wish to join us, There is a lovely empty plot of land to the east (or say a hostile settlement that we are about to turn into an empty plot of land), we can pay and send support in relocating you.

and if they turn that down, I believe it is still within reason to assault the nation after giving them ample opportunity to join or move, and then assist the now homeless group in setting up a new settlement.

Being good does not mean if someone stands in the way of your goals you have to wait for them to physically harm you before you can take any action. While the game's algorythms certainly won't be able to judge it, (which leads me to believe that for the most part, assuming you follow whatever appropriate rules of war are, attacking settlements will not likely be an evil act, and if so it will be minor to the point where unless you regularly declare war on distinctly weaker settlements, you won't drift noticeably) there is nothing definitionally evil about declaring war on even a peaceful settlement, after attempting to find a peaceful agreement over land, resources etc...

What do you think happens to a good settlement when their neighbors realize "oh they are good, we can harvest their nearby resources dry and they can't do anything to stop us". Or rival groups specifically hire or create dummy super weak settlements to box them in, or as buffer zones for their own evil lands.

As long as I can build an Eldridge Knight or Magus type character I will be extremely happy.

Heh well this thread is now almost entirely based on dated information. Capstones no longer are canceled out longterm effects on your character, instead a perk you get while you have all skills set up.

Elderich knight or magus, will probably be in existance later in the game, odds are not in the begining of the game. (Start of EE isn't even anticipating all of the core, let alone prestige or APG classes), In addition they have mentioned something to the regard of most equipment having drawbacks to other areas, so it may take some time to get a martial caster mix. Not saying it won't happen, just probably not going to be viable without either a class added ~1 year after open enrollment, or equipment that will likely take a year to afford