UnArcaneElection wrote:

Skwiziks wrote:

Alright, I'll give it shot. EDIT: Added a couple more.

1.) {. . .}
2.) {. . .}
3.) {. . .}
4.) {. . .}
5.) {. . .}

I want to see them all!

Yep, those were good Campaign pitches.

Thanks! Though only a couple of those would be unique to the Starfinder setting. 2, 4, and 5 are easily adaptable to other games. =)

Also a request, would you be able to record the stream for those of us unable to watch it due to work or other conflicts? Thanks.

1.) It was mentioned in the recent GI interview that the inclusion of the Ysoki as a core race was a somewhat contentious issue within the development team. What are or were some other issues of contention during development and how were they ultimately resolved?

2.) What are some of your favorite experiences during playtesting so far? What about the Starfinder system made them stand out?

3.) What is one thing you wish could have been put into the game but had to be cut due to time, complexity, or other such issues?

4.) Tell us about the first character you want to play once the game is released.

5.) Do you plan on providing support for supplements containing information on extrasolar destinations?

Alright, I'll give it shot. EDIT: Added a couple more.

1.) A group of fanatical crusaders figures out a way to isolate and choose which outer plane to strip territory from when they enter the Drift, and call for a FTL war against the forces of evil. It quickly becomes apparent that whatever devices they've cobbled together work, but the long-term consequences are entirely unknown. Will this new crusade actually eradicate the outer planes aligned with evil? Does shunting Hell into the Drift destroy Hell or just relocate it? Who and/or what will be able to capitalize on this sudden fractured rearranging of the multiverse?

For those who want to smash religious organizations with morally ambiguous goals against the multiverse and see what shakes out. I wonder what Rovagug's been up to? Hmmm.

2.) The party comes to on a strange hodgepodge of a ship as it enters a solar system. They quickly discover that they've been in stasis for centuries and have no memory of why they got there, or why they were even traveling in the first place. There's plenty of supplies, a plethora of garbled messages, and one giant mystery.

For those who want to play out the consequences of the Gap with a group of people who fled Golarion as the disaster hit and have never heard of such things as the Pact or Absalom Station. Scale the size and population of the ship up or down to skew the genre more towards survival or intrigue.

3.) The party comes into possession of a wayfinder. It's clear from its battered state and tarnished surfaces that despite it's magical nature it's ancient, maybe even originally from Golarion. Experimenting with it reveals that the dial still works, pointing always to a single location in three-dimensional space and that it's enchanted to always point towards home. Could this actually be the secret to finding lost Golarion?

For those who want to play out solving one of the core mysteries of the setting. Inspired in part by the film "Titan A.E."

4.) There's been a series of broadcasts across Pact worlds recently of a ghostly silhouette performing an enchanting song. No one knows who the performer is, or where the broadcast originates. At first it was a pleasant surprise to see the performances overtake normal media outlets, both private and public, but as time has gone on people have been wondering just who this person is and law enforcement are growing more concerned how someone is able to hack into communication systems of all kinds with impunity. Rumor has it as well that the songs are magically compelling people to act out their contents, at first a few isolated reports, now growing in number with each performance. As one of the Stewards' Special Task Forces for investigating cyberspace crimes it is up to the PC's to ferret out the truth of the matter before the siren call brings ruin to the Pact.

For those who want to play out a story of good cops in race against time. Note that this campaign seed has an optional Lovecraft Intensity dial, depending on how much eldritch horror you want to work into it.

5.) Verces, 0447 Pact Standard Time. Samekh is dead, brilliant inventor and first Android to ever become CEO of a megacorp, not that their tenure lasted longer than a day. Possible suspects range from an internal dispute within the corp, a rival corp, humanocentric extremists, and many others. There's a case to crack as to who killed Samekh and the resulting reward, but also the whereabouts of their missing research, said to be capable of revolutionizing the manufacturing industry. In a city that's always in shadow it's time to see just how dark it can get.

For those who want to play out a cyberpunk mystery, as Stewards, a group of freelance investigators, or whatever else works.

Probably too late to gather in any others, but one had to try.

Though I am unable to join you, at the very least you can count me as a friend and fellow Desnan.

Skwiziks - T7V, quietly here since Feb of 2012.

We'd like to welcome our newest member Wexel Daventry!

Are you now a subordinate to the commands of the Covenant of the Phoenix?

Negative.

Welp, I mean, since it's so obvious...

Inquisitive: T7V will not only strive to learn the intricacies of the game, its world, and its lore, it will also ask the kinds of questions that lead to a more complete understanding.

This task will hopefully never be finished.

Notmyrealname wrote:

How big can this single server MMO that you are building become? How many players in the game world on one server?

EVE Online is a single server MMO, and it routinely hosts more than 40,000 players at once. PFO almost certainly won't be able to handle that many people during Early Enrollment, or even when it opens up to the world, but given several years of steady growth, it could wind up that big.

This post made me realize, at least in one way, how size will affect the early game.

If there are only a small number of active players (10,000?) won't it be fun when someone wants to join an existing organization, and immediately three or four members already know them?

That's good to hear. What about TSV?

Speaking personally, the more open the settlement, the happier I'll be. We'll see if that's possible.

I've been considering the political consequences of groups considering escalations their 'turf' and 'defending' them against 'poaching'. I'm not sure how that should work; it seems anti-lore but pro-"meaningful player interaction".

Another concern would be turning what GW is calling PvE content into a PvP issue. Then again, would such a development simply be a reflection of the game's nature?

The prudent choice may be having, at least for this, a notable divide between PvE and PvP.

It happened in EVE with OTEC, a network of networked player organizations got together to make what was essentially a cartel.

It may be feasible, although highly unlikely.

I'd go with "...not the kind of person who buys Lo Mein when I want to eat Phad Thai.", but that's just nitpicking. I get where you're coming from, and to be fair if the game were like what you wanted, I would never have been interested.

It's one of the polarizing fundamentals about PFO, can't help that.

@Bluddwolf, Good point.

I am 100% fine with harvesting and monster hexes periodically shifting around according to some sort of timeline (possibly randomized to some extent), because that establishes that NOBODY can long-term rely on controlling certain hexes to control certain features. But saying that only when you leverage your control of a feature to become very successful, will GW shift things around so you no longer benefit from what you worked for, seems like a let-down.

Agreed, you put it better than I could articulate at the moment.

Of course, I also expect GW to periodically expand the map, and that also expands resource opportunities.

Or expanding on what Decius mentioned above, altering the frequency, quality, and locations materials are generated in the world. Although I'm not a hundred percent comfortable with the idea.

And we are aware of the danger of a powerful settlement "cornering the market" on a part of the economy critical for the health of the other settlements. We will be watchful for such outcomes, and will be prepared to take action to resolve them for the good of the game if necessary.

The "...if necessary." portion should be in big, flashing letters with arrows pointing at it. A faction or network of factions monopolizing a critical resource is the perfect opportunity for player-conflict of the most dramatic proportions.

An intervention by GW for anything less than "oh gods everything is falling apart" will likely run counter to the game design principles.

Maybe a bit more on the Paypal thing. Paypal has a requirement that the goods paid for be shipped or the service delivered within a short time window from when the payment is processed. While I know there's lots of counter examples of people offering the same kind of things we are on multi-year timelines, we've got a particular sensitivity because of the volume of business Paizo does with PayPal. We just can't jeopardize that relationship even by proxy. So we're complying with the letter of the terms of PayPal service rather than what appears to be the more "accommodating" industry practice.

And with Paypal having frozen accounts in the past for weeks at a time for violations of their terms, it's probably best not to use the service.

Hmmm, I guess that makes me the second person in this thread for Desna.

But to answer your question... maybe, eventually.

Every piece of an attack is modular. For example, "Stuns for 2 Seconds" is just a mechanic that can be added to any attack. They all feed into a formula to output the final costs and results of the attack. But that's likely to just be the starting point for playtesting. We can expect situations where "Effect A is worth X... except when it's coupled with Effect B, in which case it's worth Y and really also needs to have Restriction C."

It would be a fun system, but you're right in that it would be very difficult to balance. If there is a wide enough variety of attacks with a modular system under the hood that sounds like a good formula for engaging combat.

From the blog it sounded to me like a "build-your-own" system was what you guys were going for, so I had to ask.

@Milo, I agree with you about min/maxing getting out of hand, but rock/paper/scissor can be dull unless there's enough variety, and this sounds like there will be enough variety.

Hmm, complex but manageable. Intriguing.

Will players be able to "build" attacks through a combination of stems and affixes?

For example: "Swing" is a stem and "Wrath" is a prefix, creating "Wrathful Swing"

Speaking personally, I think the key word is "inclusion".

Skwiziks wrote:

In regards to how the stories of Escalation Cycles are advanced, would it be better for the game to make it obvious, or for the process to be a bit nebulous? How much should the players have to figure out?

Realistically you'll be able to go to a website and read some fan's breakdown of the whole cycle. There won't be much mystery. It seems more important to me that we make the whole escalation experience reasonably fun through gameplay rather than through storytelling.

Good point.

Will the location of monster hexes ever change? Should they?

Will the type of mob/EC that comes out of a monster hex ever change? Should it?

Monster Hexes are a part of the geography of the game space. People will make decisions about where to fight for territory to build Settlements based on the kinds of monster hexes in the area. So I think that it becomes a problem if they arbitrarily change.

On the other hand, it is a part of the design that the world should react to the actions of the players. So that implies that the actions of the players should have an impact on the Monster Hexes. Maybe that means that over time, they slowly morph from one kind of monster to another.

That will be a delicate balancing act to avoid screwing people especially if they build an economic engine off the material drops from that Monster Hex....

But at the same time monster hexes that never change may (perhaps years down the line) make the geography of the game stale and predictable in regards to PvE.

Will certain ECs advance and then stagnate, leaving an area of the map permanently monster controlled until something is done about it? (It sounds like it, but that also seems...a little absurd, maybe?)

If left unchecked an Escalation should result in a very dangerous area developing. It may be so dangerous that the nearby Settlements are unable to deal with it on their own and that will tend to degrade them. In a very advanced state, an Escalation might make an area essentially uninhabitable.

I think that's fun. It gives advanced characters something interesting to do with their power besides fight over...

Oh it sounds very fun, my reaction was one of reflex, and now that I've had some time to think about it, the possible scenarios that might evolve out of that could easily become the source of compelling stories outside of PvP.

Thank you for your responses, they have been illuminating.

Very interesting, consider me intrigued and a little excited.

• In regards to how the stories of Escalation Cycles are advanced, would it be better for the game to make it obvious, or for the process to be a bit nebulous? How much should the players have to figure out?

• Would it be better for the effects of the artifact to be known ahead of time, or for those effects to be somewhat random?

• Will the location of monster hexes ever change? Should they?

• Will the type of mob/EC that comes out of a monster hex ever change? Should it?

• Can the entirety of an EC be thwarted by simply killing enough mobs? Should that be possible?

• Will certain ECs advance and then stagnate, leaving an area of the map permanently monster controlled until something is done about it? (It sounds like it, but that also seems...a little absurd, maybe?)

• Will it be necessary for players to participate in ECs in order to claim "critical" merit badges?

These are the things I wonder about.

Not sure at all of the validity of this but isn't going to war going to cost some amount of currency (M) where periodically a fixed amount of money is removed from your organization's coffers?

AvenaOats wrote:

I don't mind if it's a temperate zone for habitat...

It's an area the size of Philadelphia. They might give it the environmental diversity of Texas, but I don't think we should expect that.

Out here in the Gray Lands (Cascadia) if you were to plop Philadelphia down on the right spot, you could have a pretty large diversity of terrain.

Then again, there aren't any major mountain chains splitting the Crusader Road up.

I can at least hope for something like central Pennsylvania, right?

Disguise could be useful for so many people: Spymasters and their agents, bounty hunters, black marketeers, and anyone who wants to be the mysterious stranger in the back of the tavern. For the cost of a suit of armor, it sounds like a wizard or a monk could pose as a fighter until combat begins, then unexpectedly start slinging spells or swinging deadly fists. An elite army unit disguised as grunts could do a lot of damage when they're underestimated and engaged.

That may be possible, but if I understand how it works, one's armor will be severely impaired since the Disguise has to be equipped in lieu of your usual gear.

@Harad, thanks for laying out what it can do. Who knows if I'll be able to do any of that by the end of the quarter, but that all sounds very intriguing.

Hmmm, I'm taking an ArcGIS introductory class this quarter, and will have access to the software for a year. I've barely begun but it has made me wonder how the software can interact with PFO.

Grott Kraktoof wrote:

...How long is a server day?...

I think I recall it would be four real hours to a day in game.

Far as I can tell that's correct.

We're also creating a Refresh system. Characters can use particular abilities a certain number of times per four-hour in-game day, or until the player uses a Refresh—a special action characters take to refocus, rest, and regain abilities.

-----------

...keywords are an optional bonus for a spell (but an important bonus to become competitive at the expected level you're using the spell), and won't prevent you from using the spell entirely if you're missing a keyword.

An arcane caster could eventually get all of them by progressing down multiple class feature paths, but you can only have one Class Feature Passive feat slotted at a time, so you'd have to switch to a different build to most effectively use drastically different spells. That is, you might have the highest level of both Evoker and Necromancer, but you still have to pick one or the other for a given encounter.

That sounds like a reasonable balance between power and flexibility.

At the very least, even if the devs radically change things, this still looks like a good format for us to use in the future.

Well done!

The main thing the level of the spell indicates is how many keywords it supports, and thus its potential base damage. Unlike cantrips, which read the keywords on the wand or staff, a spell reads the keywords on the caster.

To clarify this means that certain spells, especially higher level ones, will require the character to possess certain keywords in order for them to be cast?

For example: A high level diviner may not have the "Archmaster Transmuter" keyword, preventing them from casting Transmute Blood to Acid.

Would an arcane caster, with enough dedication, be able to obtain every possible keyword?

Are certain keywords exclusive based on school/bloodline choices?

Concerning divine magic, in my experience the thing that sets divine casters apart is the flexibility of their spell list from day to day. Essentially they neither rely on an object nor a fixed set of learned spells.

During Prayer/Refresh periods, maybe a good approach would be to allow access to a menu from which a divine caster can choose their spells?

For domains, maybe the keyword for each domain is attributed to the character at a certain point in the archetype/class progression? Once you get to a certain point in divine spellcasting (depending on the flavor of your choices) you are required to make a mostly permanent choice for domains.

Any ideas where you'll be taking this research, or how you'll be expanding it?

I don't think Skwiziks was suggesting that Chainmail shouldn't look like Chainmail, but that it should be possible to have a set to Tier 3 Chainmail that looks like a standard Tier 1 Chainmail instead of a obviously magical high-quality Chainmail.

That is a clearer way of putting it, thank you.

Maybe you're right there. I just don't want all of the top end equipment to look like the upper level gear in WoW and GW2.

It should go without saying that stats relate to appearance; low quality equipment looks awesome, while midrange equipment looks awesomer.

I hope there will be a way to have armor appearance separated from armor stats. Is it so wrong to want to look less fantastical while still being fantastic?

Perhaps. Or perhaps the gods are perfect expressions of alignment, and alignment is ontologically more basic than gods are.

Blasphemy!

:P

In all seriousness though, the full implications of the alignment system will probably be addressed in a blog far in the future. And then will have to be calibrated in EE.

(1) I tend to think "exploitive" when there is far more female skin on display than male skin.

That's a really straightforward rubric, I like it.

Sounds, specifically Foot Steps.

Considering its the most constant sound you hear in MMORPGS, it would be much appreciated if its more than the same sound file played over and over.
(bare, leather, chain, plate, hoof, etc) with diminutive sound levels from stealth or additional ones from movement speed, weight and terrain.
I loved being able to hear someone coming before seeing them in UO.

Now that you mention it a blog about sound (effects, music, etc) in general would be great. Seconded on the footsteps.

However, I do understand that those designs are fine for plenty of people, even desirous, and I'm certainly not wanting to pull out the torch and pitchfork over this. I'm just hoping that in the final game there will be options for cloth that also fill more modest tastes, and that I wouldn't be embarrassed to show off to my daughter. :)

Seconded. The concepts in this picture from the blog, especially the left side of the third and last rows, are good examples of what I'd want any female bodied characters I make to wear.

The key word here is Options. :D

What concerns me about the way it's presented (the combat round system) is that you would basically figure out the most economical attack sequence and spam that combo until target drops. If the different attacks cost different amounts of Sta, then 1 combo should result in the least wasted points at the end of the round.

This is true if my only options are to deal damage to my opponent. However if I can also disrupt them (debuffs, status conditions, etc) and more significantly counter or thwart their attacks, then it becomes more involved.

How can I act or respond to my opponents at this moment in time such that I can regain or continue to have the advantage?

That's the kind of question I want to be asking while in combat.

Alright then, Desnan Seeker (Cleric/Druid/Rogue/Monk/etc/etc/etc) it is!

Skwiziks wrote:

I'm very curious about the way Archetypes and Skills will play out. One of the big draws to this game for me is the flexibility that comes from a skill-based system. That fluidity is far more interesting than a fixed-class system.

Will the archetypes be mutually exclusive?
Will abilities derived from those archetypes be mutually exclusive?
How strong of a presence will traditional roles be in the game?
Will there any kind of encouragement to specialize? Why?
...and etc.

Architypes do not appear to be mutually exclusive per se. It is possible that some skills may not be available to some alignments.

Traditional roles will be as strong or weak as the players choose to make them, as nearly as I can tell.

It looks like there will be an advantage to focusing your slotted skills within an archtype to gain a 'focus bonus'. How significant that will be remains to be seen. Why it is so I bleieve is to try and keep the game more like Pathfinder than less.

Hmm, right, that is what we've heard so far. I don't mind a small bonus for mimicking a class from the p&p game, I just hope there's room for the player that says "I want to play a Fighter" and those who say "I want to make my own thing".

@Rafkin, one on one I doubt newbies will have a chance, nor would I expect them too. But if that newbie has a few other friends, well now it gets interesting.

What if it could do that through enchantment? Maybe with a tradeoff?

I'm very curious about the way Archetypes and Skills will play out. One of the big draws to this game for me is the flexibility that comes from a skill-based system. That fluidity is far more interesting than a fixed-class system.

Will the archetypes be mutually exclusive?
Will abilities derived from those archetypes be mutually exclusive?
How strong of a presence will traditional roles be in the game?
Will there any kind of encouragement to specialize? Why?
...and etc.

But we will know your biggest weakness based on the armor type we see you wearing.

It does look like that will be the case doesn't it? Hopefully there will be means of inverting expectations based on someone's armor type, either by glamer or enchantment.

I would rather be on the edge of my seat in every combat situation, never feeling truly safe.

Isn't that still possible with the proposed system? There are still wide ranging variables, and the if the pacing of combat is fast, then I can still see it being exciting.

It's probably best to think of hit points not as blood loss, broken bones, or other traumatic injuries necessarily, but as one's ability to keep fighting. An attack will miss, but the effort to dodge/block/parry the attack will still take something out of you.

Stamina will be an interesting factor, as it will be the "currency" of combat. I wonder what will be better, a pool that stays fixed for all players, or a pool that can be improved through effort?

We don't currently have a concept of item degradation/repair. You'll use consumables to temporarily boost certain gear in effectiveness, which likely expire when you die, and we're hoping that will cover enough of the intended effects of a degrade/repair cycle to not require such a system. But we'll be able to say more for certain later, once we get a better picture of the actual usage patterns for items.

Sounds like a good plan.

Also, this system reminds me somewhat of Ryzom, which isn't a bad thing at all.

It also means coordination between characters specialized in exploration/finding and those specialized in crafting/gathering will be all but necessary.

Enchanting doesn't sound like it has a lot of utility, but neither does it sound like it's had a lot of attention. Curious to see where that goes.