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I logged in where a tower HAD been, but which is now where an ogre camp is, apparently. One filled with dozens upon dozens of ogres, just standing around rubbing shoulders against each other, waiting for someone to materialize. Which I did, and died waiting for the graphics to finish loading. And also where I res'd--repeatedly (because I'm body-surfing ogres). The hell, guys...
When is the next meeting of the North? This and Guardheim should be a topic. Really and truly, we'll be there this time. In light of today's developments, a mumble session would be good. Start of server downtime tomorrow?
One of our (Alderwag) players grabbed a neutral-territory tower from Stoneroot Glade a couple days ago and attempted to do so again yesterday (unsuccessfully, due to a good thumping from Haagen). If capturing a non-core tower from a fellow Highlander violates the Free Highlander agreement, we will not partake in any such action going forward. Reading through Guardheim's recent thread, though, Caldeathe and Quietus seem at odds on this point. Would anyone else care to weigh in on the status of the agreement and this clause in particular?
In most ways, the River Kingdoms conform to "traditional" RPG/MMO European medieval-esque high fantasy aesthetics and social structures. In this regard PFO is quite faithful to TT Pathfinder, because between religious hierarchies, feudal administrations, trade guilds and military orders, medieval Europe was nothing if not "high school-cliquish".
Pharasmadammit, Guurzak wins another thread.
Our posts crossed in the aether. Retaking our core ring is not an act of ill-will towards Guardheim, but rather an announcement that Alderwag does actually exist, and is not an abandoned settlement. Alderwag is eager to work closely with Guardheim (as it is with all our neighbors). Adjacent crafting settlements is admittedly an odd situation, but maybe in that oddness there are unique and profitable opportunities, too.
If you're referring to The Gauntlet and the Alderwag Harvest Association, both are "official" in the sense that Alderwag recognizes them and both companies include players who were part of Alderwag's founding group, but "unofficial" in the sense that for some reason neither company displays as being affiliated with Alderwag. Some technical error, as far as I understand it. Alderwag's Head of Settlement (Luther Phoebus) is addressing the issue with GW. I'll supply more info as I hear about it.
In a post-NAP War of Towers Guurzak wins this thread. Now I want to play a Skeksis.
Neadenil: To which I would argue, with such a limited population, allowing a handful of players to use "one weird trick" to become ultrarich (or ultrapowerful) twenty days into the first month of EE is also a potential game destroyer. My way, at least we all get to play on a level field while we wait for the comet to squash us. EDIT: Kyutaru and Quietus, those are both excellent points that I did not consider.
The Alderwag leadership has not convened yet to discuss our future, so I'm kind of going Alexander Haig here and assuming limited control of the situation. Yes, Alderwag is currently empty. We do not object to others "borrowing" our core 6 so long as they willingly vacate them if we actually get our act together and begin inhabiting our village before next Wednesday. Cauld contacted me a couple days ago regarding this, and though Alderwag hasn't offered a formal response, the fact that he reached out in good faith means that we do not consider this action to be hostile or unforeseen.
But so much of January is already gone, it comes down to paying for a month and PLAYING for a month, later, or paying for a month NOW and getting backdated xp but only half a month of play time. That's interesting--so the "billing" cycle is based on calendar months, not months of game time beginning on a player's activation date?
I may be speaking for myself alone, but I suspect I actually represent a fair number of players. To date, I have not been sufficiently satisfied with the apparent state of the game to begin burning my prepaid months. I say apparent, because my impressions are not based on first-hand experience--how could they be? Rather, I rely on the forum, YouTube videos and anecdotes from other players. Now, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe the game has advanced significantly since the end of Alpha and I would be impressed with the progress if I activated my account. The problem is I'm kind of cheap, and I have an aversion to throwing money at things blindly. "But you already spent that money!" you may say. True. I spent the money on a promise. That promise is not yet fulfilled. So long as I don't activate my account, PFO is the Schrodinger's cat of MMOs--it might be awful, or it might be amazing. There's no way of knowing. So I keep the lid on the box and hope that when I finally break the seal I will be delighted with what I discover. Again, I bet I'm not alone in my hesitance to "accept delivery" on the product just yet. Want to change my mind? Give me a way to sample the wares before I commit. Consider it a test drive. That being said, I'm starting to think that a certain uberbitter ex-player who continues to regale us with tales of his own genius, popularity, foresight and prowess might actually be Dancey in disguise pulling some kind of super-meta-triple-reverse psychological ops, because every time I read one of his posts I feel oddly compelled to activate my account. It's weird.
Asha, that's a very intriguing proposition. This would offer both a means to introduce the game to new players without up-front investment, and also a way for subscribers to dabble with hardcore mode without endangering their precious primary characters.
This is a very effective strategy in many MMOs, which is why I dearly hope the AI in PFO is ultimately designed to basically say "to hell with that armored bruiser over there--let's go kill these squishies first!" There is nothing "intelligent" about chasing a tank--would you leave your casters unguarded if you were in their shoes (or whatever mobs wear on their feet/hooves/paws/tentacles)?
I'll take a stab at it. PRO: "Guys, check this out--it's a Pathfinder MMO!"
My response to the side topic of P2W: In a sandbox environment meant to evoke the feel (if not the mechanics) of the TT RPG for which it is named, then entire concept of "winning" should be alien and inapplicable. Each of you who has tried explaining any roleplaying game to the uninitiated has almost certainly had to answer the question "but how do you win?" and you know the answer is "you don't". An RPG should be about change, progression, world-building and participatory storytelling. Not winning. If PFO can achieve this, there will be no point arguing about P2W, as it will be irrelevant to the game.
Is there something specific in this topic of settlement development restricting player advancement that you find inconceivable? Not inconceivable, just poorly explained. The whole nature of settlement support is vague, but plausible (and please understand that anytime I say "plausible" it's in the context of a fantasy setting like this). I also understand the need to bond characters to settlements via mechanics like associating skill level with settlement level. What I don't like is the absence of any reasonable (again, fantasy-reasonable) explanation for the apparent skill amnesia suffered by characters should they lose or leave their settlements. If it affected only support-heavy skills (artificer, smelter, etc.), that would be "unfair" but would not require any additional explanation. However, if you're going to say that a warrior who spends 90% of his time actually fighting monsters and enemies in the wilderness forgets how to swing his blade effectively because somebody burned down his village, or that a gatherer forgets how to tell a dandelion from a blackberry because he's quit his old town and hasn't settled down anywhere else yet, well, that's admirably fair because it affects all players equally, but it makes no sense on the face of it. This is not some fly by night operation from half a world away fishing for a game world to shoe horn and tack on to a preexisting game. PFO has the full support and development of Lisa Stevens and the rest of the staff at Paizo. Doesn't this give you any reassurance for brand loyalty? In the beginning, absolutely. That's why my friends and I threw our money at the Kickstarter campaign. Lately, though... it's hard to express accurately because I find myself going back and forth a lot. Let's just say my enthusiasm for and confidence in the project is not as solid as it used to be.
Takasi, you make my point for me (unintentionally, I suspect). Goblinworks is the GM. They've decided on certain house rules that depart from the published game system. That being the case, it is UP TO THE GM to explain the house rules, and the reasoning behind them--both mechanically and in game terms. The GM must do this not to satisfy MY personal tastes, but because that is part of what any decent GM does. Any GM who waved his hand at me and said "If you are looking for logical methods of immersion they are available whether they are compatible with canon or not. If you choose to ignore them then that is on you as the player" would see my back immediately. Are you proposing that this is Goblinworks' attitude towards their players? I completely agree that game designers should not feel encumbered by convention when trying to come up with something new and fresh. However, in this case the game designers made a conscious decision to appropriate the brand of a TT giant. Those old TT players like me still watching the forum have accepted the fact that what we've got here isn't a pure RPG experience, and we've accepted the fact that a lot of game mechanics don't translate well from the table to the screen and must necessarily change. Necessity is the key, though. The more the designers willfully depart from canon, both conceptually and mechanically, to shape the product they're crafting, the more I wonder cynically why they chose the Pathfinder brand at all? Just slapping a map of Golarion on something so removed from canon that it would play the same if it were called "Greyhawk Online" or "Forgotten Realms Online" is like me pasting a picture of a whale on a Hardy Boys book and selling it as Moby-Dick. Words are open-ended! Who cares what order you put them in? I'm telling you this is Melville, and you're a lazy reader if you can't figure that out! D20 is the "open ended RPG element" you refer to. Pathfinder is not. The Pathfinder brand is a specific implementation of that element, embedded in a carefully-cultivated game world. That game world has meaning to a large segment of the player base, which is why Goblinworks would do well to come up with some reasonably consistent backstory supporting their game design.
On the other hand, "imagination" should not be leaned on as a panacea for anything that would otherwise feel incongruous in a given setting. Pathfinder is a known body of game mechanics. Golarion is a known (albeit imaginary) geography with familiar gods and customs. If you're going to brand something as "Pathfinder" and place it in the middle of a familiar setting, you need to either hew closely to canon or be particularly careful and considerate of your departures from canon. Even fantasy worlds have their own internal consistency. Game features that build on (or take away from) canon deserve a full and detailed explanation that bridges the gap between them and the core Pathfinder universe. Maybe not right this instant, but eventually. Certainly before OE. Otherwise, the reason behind these deviations begins to sound like "Pharasma done it", or worse--"just because, so shut up, troll!" Both are entirely unacceptable.
1979, 4th grade at Wing Luke Elementary in Seattle was the start of it for me. We all had to share my buddy Mike's box-set dice when we played at lunch, because nobody else had anything besides plain-old d6s. Now I have buckets of the damned things, because I can't set foot inside a geek shop without buying the prettiest dice in the case. I am no better than a bird or a fish in this regard--oooh, shiny thing! The core of Alderwag is a fine group of fellows who've been playing D&D, Cthulhu, Shadowrun, Warhammer and Pathfinder together since the late '80s. How many other hobbies can claim to bind people so tenaciously? Not many. The summer before last on my way back from the east coast, I rode through Lake Geneva, WI, solely for the purpose of "blessing" a few dice on the Gary Gygax memorial plaque there and paying my respects to the man. We tabletoppers owe him a great deal, and visiting the old master felt like the right thing to do.
Everything KarlBob said is correct. That being said, Fort Inevitable is only about eight miles SW of Thornkeep, with the Emerald Spire roughly halfway along a line drawn between the two. In my opinion, Thornkeep is absolutely close enough to use as an encounter source with minimal fudging. Good luck with your campaign!
Thank you. That's what I wanted to know.
It's a game, not a simulation. Support is the mechanism by which settlement benefit residents. Every game mechanic simulates something. If not, there'd be no need for encumbrance, or training, or movement or combat. We'd all be omnipotent beings of pure light shooting lasers out of our butts in a multiverse of dinosaurs and cotton candy. Anybody else want to take a stab at actually answering my question? What does support represent?
Does the term "old vet" only apply to martial roles, or will high-level gatherers and crafters also impart those same benefits on groups and settlements?
I'm one of those far-west gatherers, and honestly I've been too confused about what was supposed to be happening with these nodes to complain too loudly about them. I can tell you, though, that I am still unable to harvest from any of the trash piles within two hexes of Alderwag, and of the fifty-odd piles I've dug through farther away than that I have yet to obtain a single pelt or wad of hemp.
You made me scratch my head on this one--why would crafters migrate to NPC settlements do do their work rather than staying in their own settlements?
I said it in another thread and I'll repeat it here: ArcheAge is a very pretty game. I do wonder, though, what the Korean devs think breasts are made of, as actions as trivial as speaking or breathing set them jiggling like paint shakers. And the story-pushing cut scenes are insanely overlong. That aside, it's a nice piece of brain candy with some interesting mechanics. I have it in my rotation of games to be played every now and then.
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