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I'm interested to know more of GW's plans regarding activities that fall outside what's already been discussed.

Combat, whether it be PVE or PVP is a given and is a staple of MMO's.

So to is Crafting, and it's attached games of Economics.

Nation building is an announced element also, though a little further down the track.

What I'm thinking of is a little more esoteric, and could I guess, in parts be accused of falling into Themepark gameplay elements. To which I would counter yes they could be, but it would depend how there were implemented.

This fourth category is one I feel has been traditionally somewhat overlooked in MMO's, although some have had a few elements thereof, but none had all. I'll call it 'adventuring' elements and see what you think.

These elements are focused on giving players things to do outside of combat and crafting. So far I have: Exploration and Map Making, Thievery and traps, Magical Research, Religious Duties, Cultural Developments and Challenges of Strength.

Let me break them down further :

Exploration and Map Making - For players who choose to specialise in the outdoors and associated skills. It's difficult to really refelect how this works in a game unless you can in some way restrict players visibilty of the whole world, allow for a very real possibility of getting lost. It could be refelected by penalties to actions (or bonuse to the outdoorsman, the effect is the same) for operating in wild country. Perhaps monsters have smaller aggro radiuses to the woodsman, perhaps archery penalties are decreased, and the ability to actually create maps of your travels would all be ways of giving some advantage to our outdoor friendly friends and maybe lead to their discovery of hidden glens and crevices atht others missed. (This is also something that could be applicable to streetwise cityfolk in crowded streets and some dwarves in the darker dungeons of the River Kingdoms.)

Thievery and Traps - For the stealthier brethren perhaps there is just that little bit more to be found than the average adventurer can find. A keen eye, some quick wits and nimble fingers can access things no-one else can. This can be applicable in almost any situation. Hidden rooms unnearthed, dastardly traps avoided, and acrobatic skills emply to reach places others cannot. Essentially this looks at enabling ways for the Bards and Rogue inclined builds to have more to do than just be "dps and buffing".

Magical Research - For the more mystically inclined, perhaps there are certain things that cannot be discovered just by adventuring. Perhaps some arcane knowledge can only be unlocked through diligent experimentation and research. Golems built, spell effects discovered, strange portals opened to other planes of existence where all kinds of unique knowledge can be found. This looks to give magic inclined players some interesting ways to uncover lost knowledge. Unlocking gateways, finding lost tomes tucked away in old libraries, understanding more about that weird tube you just found in the liches lair.

Religious Duties - For the faithful, the Gods require many things to be raised in their estimation. Converting the common folk, uncovering lost religious artifacts, guarding places of great sanctity, confronting and purging the enemies of the other faiths. While the tenets of every being worshipped is different, all require certain acts be performed to ensure the ongoing spreading of the word. The paladin/cleric/monk/druid styles can all be represented here, giving them duties they can choose to perform outside of the hack'n'slash healbot roles we're all used to.

Cultural Developments - For the more artistically inclined, perhaps the populace is in need of culture. Songs can be written, works of art made, great deeds turned into epic odes, new interpretations, forms and styles are always waiting to be found. Perhaps a noble adventurer could yet uncover the next great wave of inspiration? Bard types especially would like this, and it can give players a very different and unusual way to contribute to the MMO.

Challenges of Strength - For the warrior/barbarian combat is mostly all, but the call of the great Black Knight/Dragon/Troll that rampages through the land can land to greater renown, and maybe a unique fighting talent or two learned in the process.

So as you can see I'm looking at ways of making progression a little more spicey and unpredicatble.

They key as I see it to making this work, is an element of randomality, otherwise it will be all over "GettingeverythinginPathfinderin30days.com" shortly after each element is located. That's a fair bit of work and I can see Ryan and his fellows declaring 'Southraven, you're Mad!' Which is true. However I'm still interested to know your thoughts on how feasible this might be, and if any of it actually interested you or is something you might like to see. Or can you think of any more?

Alright so first off, I completely understand that the tag system is primarily to stop griefers from making everyone's life hell. I am all for this.

My problem is the Heinous Tag.

I'm really not sure what you guys are thinking with regards to Evil being an actual viable option in this game. You've mentioned already that training will be harder. Now you're providing a glowing neon sign for everyone to see "Hey check out how evil this guy is!" for absolutely no in-game reason. And then giving everyone a free shot at him.

Unless you're intending to include a "Paragon" tag for someone so sickeningly good to also be a valid target it just seems to be the developers actively choosing Good aligned companies as their 'side' in any war.

Now I may be jumping the gun here, but so far you've said very little other than negative things for people wanting to play the side of evil. Even some terminology when discussing alignments has suggested evil is a bbad thing to have happen to your character. 'You get hit with an alignment penalty'. Penalty? So falling to evil is a bad thing and is to be discouraged? In fact if anything you almost seem to be trying to artificially limit how many people do by placing multiple roadblocks in our way. If that's the case why even have 'Evil' alignments in the game at all?

There's apparently not going to be any stealth mechanics because it's too hard, so classic evil thievery or spying is out, necromancy and demonology now generates an 'auto flag for death' and on top of all this, we have a harder time training for skills?

It seems that you've decided evil people should be bandits who rob caravans and that's all. Which seems to be so frustratingly limiting as to not be attractive at all. If I am wrong and you have all kinds of crazy fun ideas for evil players I would love to hear them, and you may not intend this at all, but right now the message seems to be "Go good or go home."

There's been a number of fiercely contested topics on this subject, across the forums and back again. This is not a thread where I want to rehash those arguments with players, this a serious question to Ryan and his crew, do you envisage that people playing evil characters are detrimental to the game and should be discouraged? And if so why keep them? And if not, why are you making their lives so hard comparably to good players?

I've been watching all the various "chartered company" threads popping up and reading through them, seeing if any of them caught my eye. A few have and I've toyed with throwing my name down but one thing I did notice is that they're all, predominantly, interested in playing Neutral or Good philosophies. Nothing wrong with that, that's great fare for your fantasy roleplaying.

Then you've got The Order of the Thorn and Tony's Legitimate Bakery. They're both a little vague on details, as you would expect, and decidedly morally ambiguous. However still, neither are what you would consider to be 'true flat out evil' in a traditional fantasy rpg. They have the potential to be, granted, but certainly initially they're not setting out to be that way.

This got me thinking.

How exactly would a company who's flat out stated intention of "subjugating the world and feeding everyone's entrails to evil gods" actually function in a game like this? Can it? It's not something you could really advertise properly, I mean unless you find like-minded people quietly it's kind of hard to recruit publically.

Wearing your Company Tag would rapidly become a death sentence in the presence of any non-aligned groups. Towns and Kingdoms would want nothing to do with you. We've discussed in some other threads spying, disguise, and all the good little tools a true "evil conspiracy" might need to succeed, but is it something you actually could pull off in a game like this?

Could the cult of doom ever actually succeed in summoning a greater demon of death to reap the land? Would it be fun to try? Is the threat of success of such a group counter-intuitive to the real-world business sense of Goblinworks? Can a player actually research 'forbidden' magics like demonology or necromancy? Would they be killed/driven off if good folk discovered it.

If someone were to view my posting history here they may be inclined to think I'm a jerk interested in griefing the playerbase with stealth, spies and cons. I'm not. I am however, genuinely intrigued by the idea of playing somebody "truly truly evil". I'm talking "scourge of mankind" stuff, the guy who eventually gets killed in the final chapter. Or destroys the world. Is this too ambitious? Am I wasting my time with this and instead look to focus on maybe building a nice elf fur trader or a sarcastic sword-for-hire protecting the roads of the south?

It's one thing to want to play evil, but it's also a fine line between being 'an effective bad guy' and 'ruining other people's gaming experience' which is counter productive. A good story needs a good bad guy, someone you love to hate and see them get what's coming to them, and this will happen organically through simple rivalries in game I'm sure, but to consiously set out to be that would be dificult I think. Especially if the game systems don't really factor it in. There's no point claiming you'll summon the lord of death when everyone knows there isn't one and never will be in game.

I'm interested in your thoughts on this.

2 very simple questions.

1st, can membership of a Chartered Company be hidden in any way?

2nd, can you be a member of more than one company at a time?

What I'm basically asking with this is, will game mechanics allow for players to, in effect, be spies on different companies?

It will happen regardless of whether there are in game systems or not, it would just be a shame to have to organise it all externally to the game itself.

A common theme in MMO's, especially Sandboxes, is the desire for detailed crafting systems. I've seen developers claim that they have them, only to discover their 'deep' crafting system meant 'Wow's crafting system'.

This is a short list from me of things I would love to see included as, either skills in their own right, or specializations of skills.

Blacksmithing, Weaponsmithing, Macecrafting, Axecrafting, Shieldmaking, Armoursmithing, Runesmithing, Enchanting, Golemancy, Alchemy, Gemcrafting, Bowyer, Architecture, Farrier, Engineering, Bookbinding, Scribing, Jeweller, Chef, Brewer, Shipwright, Breeding, Butchey, Masonry, Carpentry, Clothmaking, Weaving

And also skills or means of gathering materials..

Mining, Banking, Panning, Hunting, Herding, Herbalism, Farming, Fishing, Lumberjacking, Alchemical Chemistry, Summoning, Quarrying, Planting, Harvesting

Skill in gathering determines what can be gathered, and also what quality the materials gathered are(because absolutelly materials should have quality, its something that SWG got right).

Materials should have a construction process that should be discoverable but not known by anyone to start with. The process should be guarded by players, because it has value and allows people to corner markets (and the ensuing raiding and spying that goes on as people try to reverse enginner discoveries).

Every construction process should have voluntary modifiers that can add to or detract from construction. With risk comes reward, sure once a thing is know you can make it, but can you improve it without ruining it?

These are my ideas (and I may be too late to the party, these choices may well have already been made) but they are definitely things I would love to see in crafting. What about you?