Pannath's page

Well that doesn't sound too bad. As long as it's not instant travel.

If they add the Plane of Knowledge.. I'm out.

I'm not sure if it's been addressed how the player market will work in PFO. I personally would like to see localized Markets, where what you are selling is only available where you're selling it.

I know games like WoW and many other MMO's have Market places that are availble where ever you are, or you can just do a mass search for what you need.

I really liked the idea in the original Everquest of the Bazaar. Or having playing housing or player owned shops like in Star Wars Galaxies before they changed it to a level system.

If you have a large MMO world, without easy mass transit and add localized markets, it changes how the economy works. Things that may be quite common in one area, are not so common in a different area of the game. This leads to significantly different types of crafting and what's being sold.

People will go out of their way to travel to specific settlements because they sell quality goods. Perhaps a black market is run out of a local Thieves guild a player made, or the Wizards tower sells quality magical items and spells.

Maybe your settlement because of this has a robust Bazaar, so not only are people from your settlement the only ones selling out of thier stores, but other players travel there to have their wares sold because of the high player traffic.

Even in Eve there were large Market hubs. However since it was a scifi mmo, it made sense to have a Market search from systems away. In a setting without such tech available I don't think the global or area search feature should be available. I realize that people are spoiled by conveniences like that and instant travel, but having to actually work for something and go out of your way to find it, as frustrating as it may be to do makes finally getting it worth so much more.

Some players may make their money by buying and selling commodities. You purchase in one area something that is more readily available, and take it to a place where it is not so readily available, and sell it for a marked up price. The consumer can either pay your marked up price, or get up off there ass and trek across the game world hoping to find what they're looking for at a cheaper price over there. That's how economies work in real life, and I think it will add a depth to the economy in game as well if done that way, especially since much the game will revolve around the player economy.

I'm using the phrase "Zen Gaming" because I read about this in the developers blog for the Stargate MMO (which unfortunately was cancelled), however the article and term were still sound.

MMO's are social environments. It's quite common for players to log into the game and jump around in circles and just chat, or look for something to do other than going out into the "wilderness" to attack monsters or other player, or go foraging for resources to craft.

This being said it's good to have other pursuits, or fun things for characters to do in the game (and even more so in a sandbox MMO environment). And this doesn't have to be isolated to creating one sort of "mini game" for players to do. It's always nice for the devs to have a lot of options, or to keep adding things.

It could be a number of small things, like having a functioning chess or checkers board in an inn, 2 players could sit down and play a real game.

Another very popular one is badges and achievements in games. Which can be quite extensive from numbers of quests completed, monsters kills, num bers of types of monsters killed, how much damage you've dealt/taken/healed, exploration. City of Heroes/Villains had the most fantastic badge/achievement system I've seen in an MMO. I would log in and just spend time exploring and badge hunting. And making achievements badges that you can look at in a characters info (like certain badges look different, instead of just listing player has done 'x' achievement is cooler. It's a small touch, and a small picture, but people love it).

Other examples, Guild Wars 2 has jumping puzzles hidden around the world. People love trying seeing if they're able to jump of to weird places in a game environment. I didn't even read about jumping puzzles, I found them completely by accident trying to figure out if I could jump up to a certain place. Then I was like "WTF is this hidden place?!", and called my buddies to come look. Stuff like that is cool.

Even fishing. I love fishing in MMO's. But most fishing is just boring and bland. The dev's could put more effort into it, make a fishing mini game. Give us different types of bait, and tackle, fishing rods, etc.. Put more in than just pull up the rod when you get a bite. Remember it's the small things. I would love if they put in more detailed fishing in the game.

I'm sure there are many other ideas that can be added to the game as fun distractions for players when they are not "Xping" (And I know that advancement works differently here, I just used that as an example of the type of main activity).

Some MMO's have added collectible card games into their game even. If that's too much you could add decks of cards.

In original Everquest I used to play Gem's all the time. At first it was when I waited for my mana to regen as a wizard, then I just played. I believe one of my characters still holds the high score for the plane of knowledge for all of everquest (I had a friend logged in a bit over a year ago on a different server look, and my score from over 7 years ago was still in first place).

The more depth you add the better. The dev's don't have to stop at adding one thing.

If I collect 7 goblin balls, can I summon the eternal Goblin and get a wish?

In games like WoW there are central cities that everyone goes to and travels from daily. For example, if you're Alliance you'd be in Stormwind, and people go to and from there many times per day all the way out to the higher content.

In PFO there will be player settlements farther out in the wild. People will create settlements near content, and players won't have a need to travel across the world multiple times per day. You will have things to do while you are traveling or progressing out into the wild, you could be ambushed by bandits or other encounters. It will not be boring.

Also if you work for a player kingdom enforcing the law, or if you are a bounty hunter (as I previously brought up), how could you track down players who have prices on their head or have broken the law if they can travel across the world instantly. That sort of screws over the track ability. If they know they have broken the law so badly in an area, they just teleport away without having to make their way out of the area naturally, then they're away without any consequences. If they teleport to somewhere where you can't collect the bounty without becoming a criminal yourself without having to legitimately get away, that totally destroys that system the dev's wanted to put in.

If you're forced to move around without the benefit of fast travel, then you will also be forced to think before you act about seriously having to deal with the consequences of your actions. If you could break the law in real life then teleport to a non-extradition country instantly, don't you think more people would do that?

Or you could have areas that are of equal difficulty on completely different sides of the game, they have different types of resources available in these areas. You don't need to take the long trek to travel across the game regularly between the two areas, you could stay in one. However a character who is willing to travel between the areas could sell his wares for more. The difficulty in the travel, and the time needed to transport the goods adds to the value of the resources. Let alone if the player needed to hire guards for his caravan, or purchase maps, or whatever else he had to do to get the resources in the first place. These are the sort of things that create a virtual economy in a sandbox world.

The game is still playable even with it taking a long period of time to move around.

In games like wow, there are main cities back near the beginning of the game, so people use those as central commerce points, and travel between them and other higher level zones that are far away.

If there are other player settlements or npc settlements that are farther away from the starting areas, stronger characters will congregate near them, and travel out from those areas, instead of making constant unneeded transit around the world multiple times per day.

There are other things that could also be done to help this, you could take ideas from different games. Have your character anchored to a player party before you log out, so it though it isn't in game, it essentially "follows" your other party members around, then when you log back in, you log in with your friends.

And I don't think that you're going to be bored if you have to worry about being killed or ambushed by other players or npcs or monsters while you're traveling. I'm not saying to not add in mounts to travel faster, I'm just saying that instant teleportation wouldn't be good.

People would adapt.

Any form of instant travel will ruin the game. People who are complaining saying that they wouldn't enjoy the game if it took time to travel somewhere have been spoiled but existing mmo's that have instant and fast travel networks setup in the game.

One of the main features of this game is going to be virtual communities and virtual economies. You could have an auction house, however removing fast travel and removing an all encompassing auction house will help the economy grow. Large areas of commerce will develop where players show up to trade their goods. If it takes significant time to travel across a world, and you go to purchase goods at an auction house, or in a bazaar like area where players have set up shops then it introduces another good factor into the economy.

Goods from far away places become worth more. Players who set up trade routes, and are willing to take the long treks involved to far away territories and get goods which may be plentiful there, but not plentiful where they are selling them, will then be able to influence the market. resource "A" may be plentiful in region "1" and sell for not much coin, however in region "5" this good may be very rare and therefore can be sold for much more money.

Sure everyone likes convenience. I wish that I could step out of my house and teleport anywhere that I wanted in the world. However once I can do that a significant portion of reality will be taken for granted. Far away places that you always wanted to travel are just as close as the corner store, they no longer have as much value for you because they are easily accessed. It totally removes supply and demand out of the equation for a number of issues. Instant travel would completely reform our economy. Think of all the implications. So yes, it would be nice for us, but it would completely spoil us. It's the same in a game, it's just like using cheat codes. You can do everything you want super easy. Instant travel is a game cheat code. Adding an element of not only time but also the difficulty of travel gives worth to travel. How much of a game environment in any given game do most people skim over just to get where they want to be?

I implore the developers not to add instant or even significantly fast travel into the game.

Imagine that you don't have a built in instant travel system, or auto mapping system. You actually have to go out there and figure out where you're going, or purchase a map that doesn't have a magic dot telling you where you were...

When you were able to actually do something, it would be an accomplishment. Even the skill system in this game is being designed so that players will not devour it in a matter of days. It's being based similar to the Eve skill system, one that takes time to use. So no matter how many monsters you bash over the head or how fast you do it, or how much of a life you don't have, you cannot simply devour the content and be done with it instantly. Why should the developers compromise this value in the travel system when they are painstakingly going out of their way to stop this from happening with character development?