The Pseudonym's page

...is yet another consequence of the Unresolved Sexual Tension brewing between our groups. C'mon, you know what I'm talking about.

Oh my! Senpai noticed us!

I just wanted to wish the kind individual that offered me one of their Alpha Invites. You are a scholar a gentle person. Feel free to stay in touch on the forums and on the other side!

I'm an idgit that doesn't think to check to see if there was a second page! Thanks for the invite, Lisa!

I know there's only a couple of weeks left before the start of Early Enrollment, but if anyone happens to have a spare invite, feel free to let me know. I'd be willing to take such a burden off of your hands ;)

Hey there Snowbeard.

I'm pretty sure someone else has helped to answer your question or added to the conversation about it, but I had an interview with Ryan Dancey on the 9th of January for our show, The Real Basement Dwellers, in regards to Pathfinder Online in general. My co-host had asked the a question along the same line of being able to use diplomatic skills (or even Intimidate) NPC's instead of fighting.

Basically long and short was that it is something to be considered in the future (more then likely after full release if you were to read between the lines), but as of the moment it is not slated on the immediate "Must Do" list. So it is possible that it will happen in the future, but I wouldn't start holding my breath as of yet.

Below is the link to the episode that we did to see if Dancey's full answer helps:

The Real Basement Dwellers Ep. 021: Interview with a Goblin

Being wrote:

GW isn't sharing with us things they have not yet fully decided, although they are sharing some things they are considering.

We haven't heard what it is that chaotic and evil will have that balances the game. I think it is premature to judge overall factional imbalance.

If CE is able to more easily gain goblins as cannon fodder it would go a long way toward balancing any LG advantages that have been shared with us.

While it is good to give voice to concern, it is not yet time to form judgement.

I second this.

Thirded (? I guess it's a word now).

I am more interested in the ideas placed out by this current blog post. And that is all it really is for now. Ideas and not actual facts, hardwired into the game yet.

It's interesting to see the discussions, but for the Lawful Good vs. Chaotic Evil settlement balance doomsayers showing up now I have to say one thing. Take a moment to breath and realize that we're still 1.5-2 years out from final release of PFO. Things are gonna change.

Once actual details and set plans are revealed, and it's still not what you want, then feel free anxiously share your feelings with the development team.

I think everyone is reading too much into that quote. If you look at his quote above I don't think he is saying there will NOT be stealth, more so there will not be stealth that keeps you hidden once you do something or are spotted.

IE once you are detected or do something that could be cause of you being detected you will break stealth ie the quote

Ryan Dancey wrote:

In general, being "hidden" is an all-or-nothing proposition, where the server does not communicate any information about my position to your client, period. And when my "hidden" state ends, every client can access that information. Thus, as a game mechanic, its less than ideal and doesn't work the way people wish it would.

I second this notion. When I first read that blog post from Dancey, I didn't feel that he said "There will not be Stealth in this game". It was more of a musing on how other games have tried stealth mechanics and it did not work the way it was intended or was thwarted/abused by 3rd party programs and work will have to be done to improve it.

Just gotta have some faith at the moment. We still know very little as to how the exact game mechanics will work. Once they start doing blog posts about Rogues or Rangers in particular, and they give concrete proof that Stealth as a skill will be axed, then we can discuss the reason why it shouldn't.

The Pseudonym wrote:

I'd say paid membership to a NPC Wizard's Guild with added costs for research time and materials is a pretty reasonable starting point The more elaborate the spell the more expensive and time consuming the development time is.

Making it more difficult to access a feature like this is not the way to go. This is a great idea and deserves to stand on it's own as a skill based concept. If you are an outcast wizard why should you have to bendover/pay a guild for the privilege? Couldn't/Shouldn't/Wouldn't you just do it on your own? In terms of realism, who's to stop you?

As for cost, you are right on. Cost should reflect all that. And if you need to add restrictions, make it skill based. Like skills in Knowledge (arcana)(religion)(etc).

You do have a point. But what I'm thinking is when it comes down to it, more often then not, unique home brewed spells are often attributed to higher ranking users in most professionally published settings.

The only reason I added the scenario of the Wizard's Guild gate was to add a sense of in game skill accomplishment and part entitlement of sticking with the wizarding career. In a table top game it's reasonable to have players make spells left and right because they're the stars, but when you start throwing in thousands of players making spells you run the risk of two things in my mind.

1) You belittle the idea of crafting unique spells with a custom name. There's only so many times you can rename the same spin on a Ice-Fireball spell if 8 other Joe Hedge-Wizards already came up with the same idea prior to you.

2) The possibility of cluttering the game with unique spells that could possibly clog or bug out the system.

Whether it's skill, money, or NPC affiliation (or all the above), there needs to be something in place to make it an accomplishment for a player to leave an impact on the game, let alone the possible repercussions that can be had on an economic level if you are to include the trading or selling of unique spells (which is a whole other discussion I feel).

This sounds fun enough that I would role up a wizard just to try out a system like this.

The only question it raises is what would the requirements be in order to R&D a customized spell? I'd say paid membership to a NPC Wizard's Guild with added costs for research time and materials is a pretty reasonable starting point (This is me taking a big page from 'Elder Scrolls: Daggerfall' and its custom spell maker). The more elaborate the spell the more expensive and time consuming the development time is.

I think one option to consider is when can you change alignment. If you choose an alignment at character creation, but find that the actions you actually wind up doing regularly are different from that, would you be able to formally change alignment or will you be locked into where your actions take your alignment.

Harad, I guess that will depend on whether the devs will go with a sliding alignment bar (Knights of the Old Republic: Light side-Dark side) or have you locked in until you go to an NPC of a certain alignment and pay/swear allegiance to change your alignment, which was the case in Ultima Online at one point if I remember correctly with their Karma system (may be still? *shrug*)

In my mind I'd think it would make sense to have two bars. One thats a Law/Chaos bar (with True Neutral being dead center) and then a Good/Evil bar (with Neutral dead center).

Of course how'd one begin to figure out what one action equates to which alignment is beyond me and has the possibility of being hamfisted and potentially make absolutely no sense, as is how I feel the case is in The Old Republic.

As Richter mentioned with Fallout: New Vegas, I see this sounding very much akin to what they did with Elder Scrolls: Daggerfall. Just alignment instead of character class.

I think an option of players to choose between the alignment survey or, as Chiassa mentioned, with having a detailed sidebar would include the best of both worlds for new players or alt-a-holics.

Well I know that one of my two characters that I have in mind is going to be a dwarf, so I'm looking forward to seeing more info as it comes, Elder Days.

As for my two cents on a title for the group, I would imagine "Company" would work well on multiple levels, especially for a dwarven mindset. Equal parts business and part camaraderie for a common purpose.

As Elorebaen mentioned, I think alot of people are forgetting that all the items up for vote in Poll #2 WILL be in the game come release.

And another point to keep in mind as well for anyone participating in further votes on Crowdforger topics is that when early enrollment starts it is effectively still a "Beta Test", meaning no matter what even though those in on that will be TESTING the game more then playing it for the sake of fun.

Yes, Crowdforging theoretically allows me a chance to see what I want in Pathfinder Online, but I think we have to think of the collective whole of the game first before ourselves, otherwise we run the risk of having a sandbox with far little sand in one part of the box. And I think we can all agree that'd be a pretty lame box of sand.