Pannath's page

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.

Some MMO's have more emote animations than others, dances specific to races, jokes you can tell, or things your character can say. These are usually embedded into the character. Sometimes you can do a quest and get an item that does something like launch fireworks, but that takes up bag space. And though I may still wish to do this cool new action, I don't want to sacrifice all my bag space for quirky or fun things I can do.

It would be nice if there were ways to learn to learn additional animations, or things your character would say out loud in game. Whether through quests, or finding a place to purchase the lesson in game. When you type /dance , or go to a menu and choose the emote dance, wouldn't it be cool if you had more options. What if your character took dance lessons, to be able to do other dances.

This can just as easily be applied to other actions. Maybe you went to the bards guild to learn this, or some songs to sing / play, or different jokes.

Sure I understand that there will be a number of default things that everyones character can do, however I would like if there were more in the game that you could aquire beyond the ones that you start with. People love stuff like that, I've heard it called Zen gaming (and I should make another thread on it). There are many articles on it for MMO's, different types of games or pursuits you can do in an MMO besides the main game of going out and hitting a monster over the head for xp.

I don't want to have to sacrifice bag space or carry items around to do cool things I find in game. Perhaps if items that exist that shoot off fireworks, or make a rainbow appear around you, or whatever else exist in game, you can right click on them and "learn" it. Then have another game menu or window you can pull up that has all the ones you've collected. You know 'X' dance, or joke, or action. People would go out of their way to collect stuff like this just to be able to do it, even though it's just cosmetic and social.

Are there any plans to add any extra UI tools into the game. When I first played Eve I was amazed that they had the foresight to add the simplest tools into the game, that were so useful. The ability to use a calculator, and keep notes inside of a game, or use a spreadsheet was so awesome. I think that more MMO's should do this.

You could even have an animation of a character pulling out an abacus, or writing in a book as optional, though I imagine that would be a social emote that a character should start instead of just doing it every time they started using these tools automatically.

I also like the idea of maps not being static. In pretty much every MMO you can pull out your map, and you have the map of the world automatically... your character didn't purchase it anywhere. The map fills in when you go places automatically. But you haven't actively told your character to add anything to the map, and your characters doesn't have the appropriate skills automatically to do this. And everyone's maps are all magic and show where they are instantly. I'd think that would be a pretty expensive magic item, a magic map that shows where you are and automatically maps any location that you've been to? wtf...
Players should have to purchase maps and figure out where they are on the map.

Maybe that's just me missing the old days without instant travel everywhere in a game, and having everything spoon fed to you. People appreciate things when they have to work for them. I have epic stories from back in the day of oldschool everquest of trying to meet my buddy who started in freeport when I started in Qeynos. There weren't maps in the game or instant travel. It was an adventure just to meet up with each other, and figure out how to get to each other. And it was fun. At some point we realized that we could find maps of places online, but we printed them out, and the paper we were holding didn't have a magic dot telling us where we were. There could be map merchants in the game, or characters with cartography skills that made maps and sold them.

With other UI tools you could add all sorts of things to maps too, you could hyperlink information from a document or spreadsheet onto them. I'm curious what everyone else thinks about these ideas.

I know that it is a touchy subject in MMO's, but I'd like to see a religion system in Pathfinder Online. All the table top RPG's have religion. Other MMO's have clerics, paladins, and priests, but is anyone ever a member of a church? They had religion in Everquest, and I thought that it worked very well.

You don't have to be a member of a clergy to be a member of the church. And this could add a new layer to the game. If you could build churches in player settlements, or out in the boonies. You could have religious sway in areas. Your patron God could gain more power. There are so many aspects that could be put into the game for following and being a member of specific religions. Put in a tithe system and religious blessings and favor.

Of course a character who has skills in the tree of a religious based class like a Cleric or Paladin would likely be required to be a part of a specific existing religion, and likely have more sway in such an organization, but that doesn't mean that everyone else can't be part of it either. All religions need followers. And even in real life there are plenty of religious zealots that push church politics and such that aren't priests at all.