Tyncale's page

Chris or Lisa, you think that is possible? Not sure how many left (temporarily) before the GW forums were a thing, but for those that come check back here we should make it known that we are now on the GW forums.

Thanks. :)

I originally made this post in a thread on the GW forums but I figured I could make a thread here so you guys can shoot holes in it. It was triggered by the unhappiness that many people have expressed over the past two years about the fact that you can lose access to Skills/feats when you loose the support of your settlement. (Temporarily). People are afraid this will be something that people may quit over.

You can also discuss it here on the GW forums in the Crowdforging forums: Can the game do without the training support feature?

Here goes:

I can see roughly 4 pillars currently on which the value of a Settlement(and thus the value for its members) is resting:

• The intrinsic value of its built-up real estate, through concerted effort over time from its members; buildings, Holdings, Outposts. A very important pillar.
  
• Derived from this effort is the ability to train, and to support this (and other)training.
  
• The settlements(more or less valuable) location in the Geographical, Economic and Political framework of the land.
  
• Derived from the first 3, a social cohesive community that has formed through this effort; the supported training is probably an important factor in maintaining the cohesion, though lots of others things will contribute to that too (friends, history, location, Economic and Political goals, playstyle)
  

I think a large part will scatter though, driven to places where they can get appropriate training support.

I am not saying this is a bad thing! I am actually pretty sure that Settlement Communities are expected to be challenged by this sort of thing. They are not meant to stick together forever as a goal per se.

However, looking at those 4 pillars, I am wondering if ditching part of the second pillar, the training-support feature, would really lead to stagnation in the Game of Thrones. I am wondering if there would still not be plenty of strife, Wars, unequality, Greed, greener pastures, scarcity and animosity, and most importantly, incentives to put effort in your settlement, if you take away the pillar of Training Support.

The big worry would be, that in the end, every member of every Settlement, will have the stuff trained that he wants, and have forever access to those skills(through Alliances, settlement-hopping). This could take away the incentive to upgrade your Settlement, at least for this reason. But there are still a lot of other things that a Settlement could work for, and upgrade. Training itself, Safety, faster Crafting queues, more buildings, better AH features, stronger Walls and so forth. In the same vein, those things set a Settlement apart, like Alignment, which Training, available buildings, quality of those buildings, More or less Safety and such.

Big Questions:

• will leaving out the Training Support feature bring the Economic and Political engines of this game to a grinding halt?
  
• Will Settlements lose Identity?
  
• Will it become too hard for settlements to keep their numbers, because players are no longer "bound" to a settlement for access to their skills?
  
• Will we get hordes of opportune drifters? Or will players stick to(and stand up for) their settlements for other reasons?

Been killing these red Knights, Adepts and Priests for a while now, and they only drop the occasional t1 recipe. These are mobs from a Moloch Cultists escalation near Callambea. Strength is 31497.6 (63%) in this particular hex. There are several hexes infected.

How can I recognize if something is a T1 or a T2 escalation?

And could these drop T2 expendables, or is that restricted for the escalation-bosses?

Thanks for any help.

EDIT: about 2 minutes after I posted this, I killed a red High Priest and looted Cotton Twine +1 recipe......question answered and very happy. :)

I have accumulated hundreds of spare T1 recipes, and I know many others have too. I try to trade these but it is often hard to meet up, also because I am on euro times.

Once EE 4.0 goes live, with 7-day auctions, I am planning to put all of these up on the Marchmont Market for a fixed price:

+1 recipe 49 copper
+2 recipe 99 copper
+3 recipe 149 copper
Crafting recipe: 99 copper

I may go lower on them.

My hope is that others will do the same, and follow the same pricing, or not go crazy on them in any case.

I realize that there are recipes that are more in demand and would fetch a greater price. You are off course free to put a mark up on those. I am just hoping we can get something going for fair prices.

Problems that I see:

• People are scared to run to Marchmont with 200+ recipes on them;
  
• Some rich dude will come, buy them all up and corner the market;
  
• Everybody is looking for the same 20-ish rare recipes and the AH will just be flooded with useless recipes;
  
• Unsold recipes will default to the Marchmont bank; (but at least your profits should go directly to your abbaddar credit, not sure if this is in yet);
  
• People will want to save them for future members/friends;

Would this work? Or should we not use the AH and make it a "Meet and Trade" on a certain time? Thought the latter will undoubtedly cause synchronization issues again (and you'd still have to run across the world with recipes on you).

I guess there is already bartering going on in Marchmont, but I am trying to make players go out and put those redundant recipes back into circulation.

In any case, this is what I will be doing with my T1 recipes, since I can't really barter them away anymore currently. T2 recipes are another story, I guess we will be bartering with those for the foreseeable future.

Settlements need to step up

Funny how GW is stubbornly posting important stuff like this on the GW forums (and not here), and some people are stubbornly *not* going there because those forums suck, and then I stubbornly keep linking this shizzle. :)

Maybe some day.....

I am having trouble getting enough Dex on my Archer to let him train the Tier 2 skills. The thing is, I am not interested in many Dex-raising skills and feats, other then Longbow attacks.

My two other mains, a Mage and a Fighter, I could pair with a synergistic Refining or Harvesting skill, and the ability-gate is no problem for them.

Unfortunately this *is* a problem with my Archer Main who has no refining skills, and will focus on Bows, Cleric (Wis) and the two Wis harvesting skills (Scavenger and Forester).

I am currently at 10.74 Dex, and need 11.

Spending XP on Bow attacks seems the only way to go since these give tangible increases in Dex: I have Overdraw, Half Draw, Sorrows Release at level 3, Bullseye shot, Followthrough Foresight, IMpact Criticial shot, Parting shot, and Pinpoint targeting at level 2 and Impaling shot at level 1.

I am not interested in shortbow attacks since I intend to use a Longbow/Trophy Charm and Focus/Holy Symbol combo. Not interested in Stealth or Perception. These also give minute increases in Dex.

Currently I pretty much only use Overdraw, Half Draw, Sorrows release and Longbow Exploit as attacks for PvE: all the rest seems redundant, both because a lot of conditions do not work on NPC's and because I do not PvP (yet). But I might!

So my question would be, which of the longbow attacks would be a good choice for the future, to upgrade? Getting them to level 3 is pretty expensive (1800+ xp) so I would like to make the best choice.

Are there any other Dex-based skills that may be useful for me (maybe later on)? Must give a tangible increase in Dex though.

Thanks for any help. :)

It is on the High Priority list.

No more spamming Shadowblast or Energetic Field, or wasting arrows on that already dead corpse because you pushed that hotkey too many times.

Luckily, several AE-cantrips are going on a cool-down soon, so we will already learn to pace those attacks more.

About the cost of ammo:

Mage:

The simplest +0 Charge that an Artificer can make (Disciple's Simple Charge) will cost him for a stack of 100:

• 15 Esoteric Essence
  
• 10 Ordered Essence
  
• 5 Antithesis Essence
  
• 3 Lesser Vital Gems (Onyx and Bloodstones)
  
• 3 lesser Numinous gems (Moonstones! and Pearls)

This cost goes up for the higher level charges (Anarchic Charge, Axiomatic Charge, Holy Charge and Unholy Charge), and goes up considerably more if you decide to make +1 to +3 versions of them.

It has been said that the current powerlevel of a cantrip is based on a +0 charge, so you will not be going back in power by using the simplest ones.

Archer:

100 simple +0 Steel Bodkin Arrows will cost a Bowyer:

• 4 Iron Ore
  
• 4 Coal
  
• 10 yew logs

Do you think these costs are balanced? For me personally, the arrow costs are more workable: Ordered Essence and Moonstones are a bit of a hurdle.

How are you planning your "Ammo-economy"?

Will Expendables become more popular?

Anybody ready for this? :)

I wonder how many arrows you could put in a Leather Quiver. More ++ is more arrows? I hope so, I made a +3 for my Bowyer Achievement!

Obviously I am not using "Opportunity" for this thread since that state is so common (and possibly long lasting) and so many attacks capitalize on it that it is a no-brainer.

I want to discuss a much more elusive(or short-lived) state, namely Dazed.

Some numbers:

2 Weapon attacks apply this (or a chance thereto);
7 Weapon attacks capitalize on the state by applying another condition; not all of them by the same weapon as the ones that applied the state.

5 Cantrips apply this(or a chance thereto);
No cantrips capitalize on the state.

1 Orison applies this;
1 Orison capitalizes on it.

6 Trophy Charm Expendables apply this (or a chance thereto);
None of them capitalizes on it.

0 Rogue Kit Expendables apply it;
1 capitalizes on it.

10 Spellbook Expendables apply this(or a chance thereto), 3 of which need another conditions first (being disrupted);
1 Expendable capitalizes on it.

2 Holy Symbol Expendables apply this, one of them needing Disrupted first;
0 capitalize on it.

Rather then argue about it, I would like to pose a serie of questions;

• Are people able to recognize when a target is dazed? It should show the Tan chevron as per Dazyks ref-sheet. But there are more conditions that show a Tan Chevron.

• Do you use Daze---> apply condition combo's your self(solo)? There are a few combo's that use the same weapon for instance and can be done by a single person.

• Do you ever capitalize on the Dazed state that someone else applied?
  Often the state is applied by a ranged attack, but can be capitalized on by a melee attack.

• Do you feel that the duration of the Dazed state (pretty much always one round) is workable to capitalize on it, when someone else applied it?

• And when you yourself applied it and you follow up yourself?

• Do you rather feel that you just should fire off your favorite attacks and maybe sometimes they will happen to capitalize on a state, or do you think that States could and should be used in a pre-meditated group-effort as to get max efficiency out of combat? Keep in mind that most skills only give a *chance* on applying the state, often as low as a 25% chance. Also keep in mind that most attacks that actually apply the state are usually low-damage skills so probably not your favorite.

• Does your group for instance decide to use a series of slotted skills/feats that make applying this state and capitalizing on it much more frequent?

• Do you feel that the skills that capitalize on the state Dazed actuallly *do* enough to go through the hassle of spotting the state and then acting upon the State? Stuns are often applied which are nice, but 10 Oblivious?

• If so, which combo's do you use and/or could recommend. Both solo, and in group?

• Do you feel that there are more states and supposed synergies that seem to be unworkable for truly tactical purposes, due to short durations, low chance of application, low effect when capitalized on, and too little UI feedback on which debuffs are currently running on a Target?

• Is there anything I am missing? :) (very likely)

This is just about Dazed but there are more that I am wondering about.

I would love to hear about combo's or tactics that you guys use, that go beyond "all DPS on one target" and "use Exploit when Opportunity".

100 dollars.

Step 1: redeem the invite that I send you, on a Goblinworks Account(NOT a Paizo account). See below for details.

When you redeem such an Adventurer reward your account will have the following perks:

• Destiny's Twin
  
• Daily Deals
  
• Character Name Reservation
  
• Invite a Friend: Shieldmate
  
• New PLayer Pack
  
• Alliance Pack
  
• 2 months of Gametime
  
• Head Start
  
• Open Enrollment

Note: these Adventurer Rewards were bought on an account that has *all* the daily deals so you get these too(cool and limited fluff items).

If you want to get into EE now and get the backdated XP go to:

Step 2: You then need to upgrade this account to an EE account by buying the Early Enrollment package in the Goblinworks Store, which will be priced at 65 dollars for you when you are logged into the above account (since you already have 35 dollars worth of Adventurer pledge).

When you use the generic Discount code that Lisa sent everyone, you can take off another 15 dollars (not 20, since the discount is calculated from the 65 dollar). Please note that you will need a credit card for a purchase on the Goblinworks Store.

After you bought the EE package, your account will now have the following perks:

• Destiny's Twin
  
• Daily Deals
  
• Character Name Reservation
  
• Invite a Friend: Shieldmate
  
• 2x New PLayer Packs
  
• 2x Alliance Pack
  
• 4 months of Gametime
  
• Head Start
  
• Early Enrollment
  

If you do this within the next 3 days (last day 31st of Januari) and log in with a character, your XP will be backdated to the start of EE, and you will own a "XP from day one" account. Not only that, but the gametime-month that you use up by logging in for the first time will actually run till the end of februari, so though the XP is backdated to the first day of EE (31st December '14) the start of the gametime month is not. So for a total of 150 dollars you will have a DT enabled account, with day 1 XP, 4 months of gametime, all the daily deals and several other perks.

Do not forget to make your Twin too, since I do not think that they will backdate their XP once this month is over! Please read the instructions on how to safely make your twin here: Setting up your Twin. They are important!

I have already gone through the above proces 3 times to create a few accounts for myself, and it is quick and painless. The upgrades are instant, and you can log in within minutes if you follow the above procedure.

I do not know how it works if you already have a non-DT EE account! Though I guess it simply adds the DT and the other perks to the account.

Will only accept Paypal, I am sorry that I can not use other methods.
Please PM me. You will need to give me an email where I can send the Invite to; you will then get an email with a link to redeem it, after I received payment. Be sure that you are actually logged into the Goblinworks account that you want to redeem the Adventurer Reward on!

...hangs on this forever. Repatching does nothing. Anyone else have this?

Also, is this the big one? Husk-looting?

The discussion thread about the new Blog "Your friend the Token" is here.

Very nice blog about those lesser tokens we find so often as loot.

Blog is here, props to Giorgo who pointed this out in another thread.

I have written this down as if I know what I am talking about: that is not the case! I just needed to get this clear for myself so I hope for corrections. This is NOT a Guide. You can see that by the way I start talking about upgrades and keywords right away. Maybe this could turn into a good 101 though. I find the matter pretty confusing to say the least! I want to thank Dazyk and Nihimon for their sources, they helped me along. :) And if there are glaring mistakes or omissions in this post, then we know who to blame. ;)

Disclaimer: this write-up has been written from the perspective of someone who has been around a long time and knows about keywords and how the other systems work. It could very well still be gibberish for anyone who is really new to PFO. Or it could be gibberish to veterans, I dunno. It helped me, at least. Unless I've got it all wrong. :) Which is why I am posting it.

Anyway, how I think it works:

That simple Hat there will do just fine for now, thank you.
Important: Upgrading the Misc. Gear item itself(for instance Warm Glove) from +0 to +3 does absolutely nothing to improve any Utility that you trained: these + upgrades are reserved for enchantments once these are implemented, like a +5 to Jewelcraft for a certain Glove for instance.

So keywords work differently with Misc. Gear.

Do not be confused by the category of the Utility.
You can train Utilities[Boot] and Utilities[Glove] at the different trainers; this does not mean that these utilities are specifically tied to a Foot item or a Handitem, or that you have to look for keywords on footwear for the first, and on handwear for the second: they are just a distinction between more defensive(Boot) effects and more active(Glove) effects(like + on attacks). You can recognize a Utility skill by the grey border around their icon.

So it is important to know that you will be looking for the keywords that are mentioned with the Utility, on *all* of the miscellaneous gear, including Headwear, Neck, Fingers, Waist and Back, if you want to start matching them.

Every level that you buy of a Utility adds one more keyword that can be matched, up to a maximum of 6 levels/keywords. Please note that the description of a Utility already describes all 6 keywords, even though it is still level 1.

The more keywords of a (leveled up) Utility that you manage to match with keywords on your Misc. Gear, the more powerful your Utility becomes.

Foot and Handwear do stand out in this, because these are the only items that provide Advanced Keywords. So matching an advanced keyword from a Boot or Glove gives a more considerable boost. Foot and Headwear can also have 2 keywords: the advanced Masterwork keyword and another. All the other gear has just a single keyword.

You will not be boosting the power of your Utilty soon.
Improving a Utility is not a "per Tier" thing as it is with Armor and Weapons: Improving a Utility by matching more keywords progresses across all the tiers: tier 1 Misc gear will only provide the first keyword of any Utility. You will need Tier 2 and 3 Gear in order to create a setup that will match all 6 keywords of a max level Utility (level 6). This is also reflected by training the Utility-skill: you will need to do a serious investment before you can train it all the way to level 6.

You can Mix and Match.
However if you want to cover all keywords of a maxed out level 6 Utility, you will not have many options in choosing different Gear setups. Though this may change when more gear is implemented over the course of the game.

An example setup:
To get the most out of Level 6 of Shield of Faith (Boot Utility):
At level 6, this Utility has 6 keywords that can be matched: Stubborn, Ominous, Impeding, Masterwork, Resilient, Otherwordly.

• Finger: Fine Ring, Tier 1 item, Stubborn
  
• Neck: Ornate Necklace, Tier 2 item, Ominous
  
• Waist: Merchants Cinch, Tier 2 item, Impeding
  
• Foot: Stylish Slipper, Tier 3 item, Masterwork and Otherwordly (important boost)
  
• Head: Adventurers Hood, Tier 3 item, Resilient.

Note that for instance to match that first keyword, Stubborn, you could also equip a Comfortable Glove instead of the ring, a Tier 1 hand item that also has that keyword. Just to show that even though it is a Utility [boot], a piece of handwear can actually improve it.

Lastly:
Currently it looks like any Utility that you trained works fine without having *any* gear in any of your Misc. Gear slots (and thus you are not matching even the first keyword of that Utility). I assume that this will not stay this way, since that would mean we could go without any Misc gear for all of tier 1, which is a pity for crafters.

The one thing I have no idea about: what is it that actually improves by matching more keywords: Duration, Chance to hit, Buff strength?

I was wondering if corpse-camping is going to be a problem once husk-looting goes in. Will the person who was killed have some sort of very temporary "Invulnerability buff" directly after looting his corpes maybe? So that he can have a chance to get back some stuff and then run for it?

I have always wondered how feasable it is in a PvP game to have to run back to your corpse to see if there is anything left on it. Returning to the scene of the crime never felt more stupid then in this scenario.

Now I can see how a group or duo may want to run back and contest their corpse, if the killers/looters are still around: this could even be fun for some. Not so much for the lone guy, unless he is a also a fighter.

I think lots of stuff will be left on corpses all the time, because of the hurdle that Encumbrance throws up for looters, so I think that mechanic works fine. But what is to prevent a killer(after he loaded up on the loot himself) from repeatedly killing the guy after he looted his corpse? For instance to bide time untill his buddy shows up who can take the rest? Or kill again after the harvester clicked on his corpse again, so that more gets destroyed? Or just for fun?

Let us for a moment not depend on common sense(you got your kill and loot, now walk away), and just focus on the reality of a guy who has his Prey coming back to him, every time, to present himself for another kill.

For myself I have already decided that I will never go back to the corpse of any of my harvesters(who will have zero combatskill), I'll just announce that there is a "fat corpse with coal in SW quadrant" in Hex-chat, so at least it can become some sort of prize for whoever wants to fight over it. ;) Which isn't so bad when it comes to player-created content, I guess.

Is it only the Companies that are holding a PoI and that are part of a Settlement (one of the "banners") that earn influence when this is implemented? Or is this more linked to the individual achievements of the members itself in a company?

My company is a Banner under Callambea, but I will not be holding a Tower, or PoI once they are implemented(trading company).

I know at some point, players can be member of a Settlement without even being in a Company: do these players earn influence through their achievements? Or add anything directly to the Development Index of the Settlement?

If its the achievements of the inidvidual members that (also) count towards Influence, will this be backlogged for the achievements they earned prior to the Influence feature going in? I am thinking this is a big fat NO, which is fine, but I thought I'd ask. :)

Time for some positivism!

Here are 2 of my favorite features, that put a smile on my face everytime:

1) The extensive Road network. It is obvious that a lot of time has gone into this, and I personally love to map out a journey, using the roads themselves. Even though stuff spawns on them, you have a much better view and will not get surprised by that camp behind that hill when you go cross country. The network is also pretty varied, not too repetitive. When I map a journey and the road has a kink that would be too much of a detour, I use 2):

2) The personal pinpoint on the map! I am sure this was also implemented so that people can quickly find eachother (much needed) but it also helps me during my solo journeys. When the road takes me on a detour, I just pinpoint the spot where I want to pick up the road again, and go cross country from there. Also great for keeping you going in the right direction when you get sidetracked by harvesting those nodes. :)
Lastly, very handy to use when harvesting a particular node-rich area: you see some nodes to your left but also to your right on the minimap: in order not to lose my bearings on these, I put a point near the group on the left while I go harvest to the right.

(this reminds me: we should have a "useful tips" section or thread, like every self-respecting MMO)

Unless GW decides to shuffle around resources on a regular basis, so that databases like this are not useful, I think any mystery about which resources to find where will be lost rather quickly. And it seems unlikely that GW will shuffle them around, since that would just be too much hampering with the political implications of it: also simple geography just makes sense for some resources, such as Wood and Pearls.

I have heard players worry about this, since they hope for information about resources in a Hex to be somewhat exclusive to the nearby Settlement owners, and be able to kept a mystery to a point. That is not going to happen. Only the rate of Depletion is something that probably can not be found on such a public Doc, because those states are too temporary.

Proposal:

So I was wondering, could Gushers maybe be somewhat less consistent in their Hex-location and also appearance, to add a bit more mystery, exclusiveness and intrigue to this aspect of the game? There is a myriad of resources that would lend itself well to suddenly sprout up at an unexpected location.

So for instance, at some point there is a chance of finding a Moonstone gusher in a hex, that usually does not have this resource, but this chance only exists for a few days. This information could be tried to be kept secret by the nearby settlement owners.

Hell, even a cache of Pearls could be found in the mountains, as a hidden stash from an old retired Pirate that had his belly full of the sea. This could be a one off gusher, though that lessens the political implications. I would also expect the regular gushers to appear, for resources that are native to the area.

Rumor and intrigue about unexpected gushers(type for location and having a short appearance)appearing somewhere could add a lot of flavor and gameplay. Think Gold-rushes and Klondike. And lots of battle. I am also a big proponent of "random get lucky" features in a Game, as long as it does not give an unfair advantage somehow, or can be gamed/exploited.

Star Wars Galaxies had a similar feature, where extremely high-quality resources could appear and then be exhausted, sometimes to never even occur ever again (which created huge demand for anyone that had some). Though the latter would probably not be feasible, and make it too exclusive.

I think especially PFO is fit for such a feature since it will create gameplay (spies, Scouts) and more strife. Nothing is ever *truly* exclusive in PFO, because you can go to War about everything.

It also lessens the predictability about where stuff can be found, and though we all want *some* predictability, too much of it is boring.

EDIT: There is one caveat: these "surprise" gushers should not be so plentiful, that they endanger the "transport" business and overall Economy. So I am not talking about every single Hex having surprise gushers appearing in a long random chain.
I am talking more about 5% of the total number of Hexes at any time having a 1-5 days lasting chance(also not predictable!)of sprouting a surprise gusher, per month maybe. This is something that can be easily tweaked imo.

After reading this thread in the alpha forums, and the reply of Ryan, I simply have to ask.

Question from Zayvian about /emotes:

Any chance these will eventually be followed by animations and sounds?

Answer from Ryan:

@Zayvian - if the Crowdforging process directs us in that direction, yes.

Here is the thread: Still confused about Crowdforging

So when will the crowdforging get a more official form? As in some sort of poll, where directions can be chosen, directed by Ryan or someone else from GW?

Or do we need to keep packaging our wishes, ideas and concerns in many a (worried) thread, as we have done till now, where the loudest and most outspoken get the most say, untill you guys apparently pick something, and then after the fact tell us "that this and that has been succesfully crowdforged?"

If that is true then crowdforging is nothing more then your usual alpha/beta forums, where people submit bugs and ideas for improvement of anything, from details to general ideas, and hope some of it gets fixed/implemented.

There are in fact a couple of very recurring themes with the players, like a better AH UI, and more functional forums on the Goblinworks site. Been going on for *months*. Not asking for the sky here too imo. But somehow that does not seem to be crowdforging stuff. It has been noted, but either explained away (AH issue) or "no ETA"

I understand time-constraints and limited development resources: I also understand Dev-priorities overrule player priorities. But at least there could be some sort of official crowdforging white-board, where our ideas/wishes/priorities are acknowledged by the team, and get some sort of priority-ranking by you guys, with information as to where this idea stands in the hierarchy of things. With frequent updates from your side and input from our side.

To end in full sceptical mode, I feel that the few times that Ryan cried out "we have crowdforged this!", those were things that were simply in the pipeline already, were pretty much no-brainers to begin with, and just happened to be implemented/finished right in conjunction with our "crowdforging wishes".

Is it early in the morning? Could someome check the time for me? The time please! (I am enjoying the game, just so you know, ask Dr. Jekyll later)

I think I know the answers to a few of these but want to check. Also a good reference.

• Do you only get Crafting points when you see the actual "Achievement Common, +0" in your chat window?

• If I craft *another* Common, +0 item(different sort of item) from the *same* profession, do I get Crafting points from that?

• If I craft another Common, +0 item with the same character, but for a different profession, I take it I *do* get Crafting points for that(since I get the Achievement), which will accumulate with the ones I have?

• Where can I check my total amount of Craftingpoints that I have accumulated?

• I noticed that when I craft a "Common, +1" item, while not having crafted the "Common, +0" item yet, that I get the Achievement for both a Common, +0 as well as the Common, +1 item. Is this correct and do I get the crafting points for both of these achievements, relieving me of the obligation to craft that Common, +0 item? Or do I have to make that item still, to get the crafting points?

• I read in Nihimons formatted data that we will need up to 133 Crafting points for a level 20 Crafter: if you somehow manage to stick with a single crafting profession(mixing it up with a combat-profession/skills that increases the same Ability as needed for the crafting profession) am I correct in thinking that you *will* have to get pretty much all of the +4 and +5 achievements too, in order to get to these high numbers of Crafting Points?

• In the same vein, am I correct in thinking that when you level up *two* crafting professions (that use the same Ability!!) with the same character, that you can partly avoid this need to craft +4 and +5 items, since you get Crafting points from both of these Craftiong professions?

Thanks!

I am getting quit a few of these and had not seen them before, since I have not been playing much at the end of alpha.

I love them though, this is the sort of detail that brightens up a MMO-world imo. Reading the little snippets, or the silly chants of Goblins really adds some color. Makes me happy every time I find a new one in my Inventory. Kudos to the devs for this feature.

I notice that they are often part of a series. Will there ever be a reward for completing these? Or maybe an achievement?

I noticed they are made from wood: are they usable by a Sawyer? :D

This has been on the back of my mind for a while.

I always figured that the resources we find in nodes (and soon gushers) were a completely different beast then the Bulk Goods we will be able to acquire through Mining PoI's and such.

Resources from nodes and gushers are for Craftables, while Bulk Goods are needed for creating new buildings in the Settlement, and maintaining the settlement (Bulk Food and such).

However a remark from Ryan (I think) threw me off, saying that the resources that we find in nodes(including gushers) are only about 30% of the total amount of the resources in the game.

Now I was wondering, will a Mining PoI be able to produce regular True Iron resources too, that can be used for weapon making? Or will Bulk Ore(or Bulk Iron as it was once phrased) be able to be used for weapon-making?

I ask this also because I noticed that Coal and other ores from nodes weigh a whopping 0.5 a piece. I can see the need for this, since these are the ingredients to make the more persistent items like weapons and armor, which will often be threaded.

However, if True Iron ore can be produced in larger quantities in a Mining PoI, then I do not see many gatherers bother with ore and coal from nodes. Mainly because I expect a Mining PoI to have organized handling of the transport of these heavy resources too (caravan).

Thanks!

First of all, thank you for implementing this so soon. I am very exited, and having a lot of fun with it already! Have not played so much since the start of alpha.

My questions:

• Does every auctionhouse list *all* auctions that have been submitted globally? Sorry if this has been stated elsewhere already.
  Since Ryan stated that a toggle to show ony listed items will not be necessary since soon *every* item will have auctions going, I think the above must be true. If listings were local I do not expect every small town to have listings of every item that exists.

• If the above is true, does "Silver Shortsword +2 +1" mean that there is at least one of those swords for sale somewhere? I have seen both "Silver Shortsword +2" and "Silver Shortsword +2 +1" listed together so confused about that too.

• If so, will we be able to see in which town that sword is sold, in the future?

• Will we be able to see the name of the seller at some point?

• Is it true that the "minimum price" for a listing can be either lower or *higher* then the initial listingprice of an item? If so, what is the idea behind this?

• Will we be able to do Buy orders at some point?

• Currently my listings are keeping the same price: is the gradual decrease or increase of the price not implemented yet?

• Will we be able to use more advanced parameters for the search function, so that we only get to see items that both have +2 and the word "sword" in the description, but not necessarily in that order? That would go a long way to do specific searches. The tabs already help a lot but some lists are still very, very long. Also, with better search parameters you could avoid the tabs and go straight to what you are looking for.

(Disclaimer: I have tried searching for more info about the features of the AH but info is currently so spread out that I could not find much(2 forums, Ideascale comments, Wiki and a billion google-docs and pdf's spread across the web).)

Feel free to add any questions. :)

Because auctionhouses. :) I now have found an incentive to log in. I browsed the Ossians Crossing Auctionhouse and could find no +0 Wand for sale. Then I browsed the Tornnkeep Auctionhouse with an Alt and found one for sale.

I found batches of Copper Ore for sale for 20c, 25c and 1s29c: if I would have had any coin, I would have started to quarter the prices on Copper Ore right there! ;)

This reminds me of the early days in EQ where I finally found a player with a Runed Totem Staff for sale, but he was in Freeport and I was in Qeynos. So we decided to meet each other halfway in South Karana.

Local markets baby! I love them. For me the game has truly begun now. Now all the rest can just follow. :)

Sorry, just enthusiastic about this absolutely core element of the game.

Anyone want to comment on the current features of the AH? I think this is a pretty good start!

You can now start spreading the goodness to your buddies. I noticed there is now the option on your GW account to send out invites for the Adventurer Addons that you bought in the Pledge Manager!

I still do not see anything else showing up in "My Account", so I am not sure what kind of information invitees will get when you send them an invite. Hopefully, the perks and bonusses are listed in the email.

Edit: It does not list the perks yet. Redeeming was painless though, same way as alpha-invites.

First, I love the 2 new premium items.

I have been wondering what the Smallhold means for the Inns though, both the backer-Inns as well as the PoI ones.
Smallholds seem to offer quit a bit of utility for the price.

The thing I am mostly wondering about is how access to the Smallholding is regulated.

This quote

It can serve as a base of operations for an ad hoc party, a company or for an individual who wants to homestead a place in the wilderness. And it is a meeting place and a communication system for you and your friends.

seems to imply the Smallhold does not necessarily restrict access to a certain Company only.

Can anybody access a Smallhold that he finds in the Wild? Or does someone have to be added to an access-list by the owner?

If the latter is true, and adding players is simple to do, would so many Smallholds not become a competitor to Inns?

Some comparing and musings:

Smallhold(200 dollar):
Cons:

• Needs Upkeep;
  
• Destructable;
  
• 30-day cooldown, account-wide;
  
• Acces limitations?
  
• Interface (at first, will it become an instance, or an open world building once interior is implemented?)

  Pro's:
  

• Power-regen;
  
• Bindpoint;
  
• Private Chat;
  
• Can take player out of the world(Invuln), safe for PvP;

  PoI-Inn(built through serious player-effort);
  Cons:
  

• Needs Upkeep;
  
• Destructable;
  
• Not safe for PvP;

  Pro's:
  

• Open world building with interior;
  
• Power-regen;
  
• No Acces-limitation (unless owning Company decides so, assumption)?
  
• Power-regen;
  
• Bindpoint for Company?
  
• NPC/interface selling buffs/drinks (assumption)
  
• Basic Skill-training for Bards, Commoners;
  
• Lodging (logging-off/in perks) (assumption)
  
• Hop-on/off point for Fast Travel? (stables, assumption)

  Backer-Inn (5000 dollar);
  Cons:
  

• Needs Upkeep;

  Pro's:
  

• Non-destructable (if upkeep payed);
  
• Open World building with interior;
  
• Power-regen;
  
• No acces-limitations (unless owner decides so? assumption)
  
• Bindpoint for Inn-owner?
  
• NPC/interface selling buffs/drinks (assumption)
  
• Basic Skill-training for Bards, Commoners;
  
• Lodging (logging-off/in perks) (assumption)
  
• Hop-on/off point for Fast Travel? (stables, assumption)
  

There will be a lot of Smallholds in the world, and when access can be set to unrestricted (or the access list can be expanded indefinately) I feel they are going to take away from the "social gathering" aspect of Inns.

I guess this comes down to my fear that Inns and Taverns in a MMO pretty much *always* fail to live up to their true potential, and become ghost-buildings.

Convenience, availability of specific perks and accessability is usually where people gather, and the Smallholds seem to be a pretty cheap contender for this.

If they are Company-only, then some of my fears would subside, though they would still be big contenders.

Get your behind asap to Freevale, we accidentally rejected your application, because the buttons were too close together for our thick, gnarled, Barbarian fingers!

You are already becoming a Myth in Freevale, people whisper about a mystery guest, there are rumors in the Tavern, Bards are writing Sonnets!

OOC:
Pullleeeese do not take your EE vote elsewhere!

Freedom, a touch of the insane and off course a Tavern to hone your skills and get that much needed praise for your awesome Arts: the ideal mix for a Bard! And Freevale has it.

Chaotic Neutral, Free Agents welcome and a Kickstarter Tavern ready to go once they are implemented in EE.

We all know Bards are Chaotic, but are you Good, Neutral or a little bit evil?

All are welcome! Wouldn't it be great to form a Company of Bards and go on the road to perform in all those Taverns along the Roads and in the Wild? Call your troupe, "The Merry Mandolins" and go wreak havoc on the ears of the gentle folk of the River Kingdoms! Earn coin(or the pitchfork...).

Freevale will have a Kickstarter Tavern so the moment they are implemented in EE, you can immediately(*) start training and performing there. Or build one with your Troupe near Freevale!

Check out Freevale and taste the atmosphere: that could be your Tavern on the right in our GuildHeader!

Some relevant developer quotes concerning taverns(* TBD, disclaimer, PFO is a work in progress, do not hold us on these quotes!):

Ryan, describing the function of a few PoI's:

Inn: A welcoming tavern that provides lodgings, player power regeneration, limited trade goods, some training for social classes, and a space for social interaction

Stephen, clarifying the above quote;

Can you give us any info on "social classes"?

We just meant that it'll train a (TBD) selection of things useful to the more "social" roles like Aristocrat and Bard, probably including certain skills.

Ryan, on Taverns during EE:

The taverns have interiors now. Other buildings will have interiors but not for a long while.

And on May 7th 2014:

I think we'll get the Taverns in very quickly. Certainly in Early Enrollment.

Stephen on Cha concerning Wizards, Sorcerors and Bards:

Wizards and Sorcerers should have a lot of crossover on their cantrips for arcane weapons (and I believe we've set it up so those crossover abilities key off of both Int and Cha) and a few other features. They'll have different sets of specific role feats, for which there will not be a lot of overlap (but there might be some for feats that make sense for any arcane user but not for martial characters).

It's uncertain at this time how much overlap Bards will have with Wizards and Sorcerers. In tabletop, they don't use attack cantrips and bloodline/school attacks the way primary arcane casters do, so I suspect we'll focus them more on picking up cool bard feats that can go on martial weapons than on using wands and staves.

It could be a long time before Inns will have pure Bard-specific training, but I could see them implement more general Skills and Feats that require Cha earlier on, as a start. That could mean you can start getting that Cha up already! Hopefully implementing PoI-specific training, will be an early crowdforging goal.

Mind you, this is *assuming* on my part.

Here is an awesome picture of the interior of a PFO tavern: Interior of a Tavern

Come join and play for us!

As some understand it, reputation only affects the player and his access to utilities, however it does not directly affect the Settlement he belongs to. Not sure if this is true though. What I think I know:

An Individual with a low Reputation will have access to *less* utilities(training, skill support, Marketplace etc), because Utilities/Buildings can be *set* to a certain Reputation treshold(need XXXX rep or higher to use)?

An Individual with a low reputation may be barred(or killed by the NPC guards) by his (or any) Settlement because the Settlement has set laws that are tied to certain Reputation tresholds?

Will a player with low reputation gain less influence for his settlement, and thus be detrimental to its D.I. (and thus for the Settlement)?

Would that be how low reputation players can actually ruin their own *Settlements* rather then just their own access to their Utilities?

Serious exploit in Darkfall, 4-day rollback

I hope the devs are ready for this sort of tenacity. :(

Will they have a bit more functionality then the Paizo-forums? :)

Like not having to add our own tags, choice of a lot more tags(like bulletlists), signatures and the possibility of images in our posts and off course, animated smilies like :beer:?

I can understand why Paizo chooses for such barebone functionality, and I also understand that allowing images in posts is opening up the floodgates for funny, intended to be funny, not so funny, rude and downright nasty images, so I am guessing I will get a resounding "No" from Ryan/GW for that.

But what about those automated tags, bulletlists, signatures and (animated)smilies? Do not forget the power of animated smilies, like :beer: and :angel: and :rude:(oh wait, not that one) in order to create a jovial atmosphere!

I live in the Netherlands and I got this message when trying to pay for my upgrade to EE with my credit card: "transaction has been declined due to an AVS mismatch".

It seems that this is common with people who live outside the US; the 'Adress verification Service" is described as being unreliable for credit card holders outside the US.

My card works fine on Paizo.com, by the way, no problems there.

I am posting this here rather then contact customerservice, since this may become a general issue for people outside the US, rather then a single personal one.

I hope this can be resolved. Sorry GW, another issue on your overloaded plate! :(

I am a bit bored. :)

So I was playing with the idea of putting up a network of couriers across the River Kingdoms that would make use of single characters, built for carrying and travel, using fast travel. We do not really know how Fast travel will look like, but I think there was talk about a scripted horse-ride following main roads, which would suit this idea fine. I would just have to set the courier off and only check on him when he arrives at a "hop"(if at all, off course).

The idea is to haul crafing ingredients and items where speed and number of rides should bring the profit: the hope is that most of these couriers will manage to avoid Bluddwolf and his cronies, working with the motto: "you lose some, you win a lot".

I assume bulk goods will rather need the caravan system, or dedicated, slow packmules so this will be more about smaller hauls that a single, dedicated character can carry.

These couriers would off course be respected citizens of the Settlement that they are part off.

I would need a load of Alts (and/or accounts) to make this worthwhile, but I am hoping that these courier characters may already become viable transporters with 3-6 months of game time. They will need dedicated skills. This will also depend on if GW will allow us to log in characters that are not currently on the XP-faucet. If not then this may become too expensive quickly.

The idea is to be able to field several Couriers at the same time, and from locations that I can control. I can adjust my runs if there is a lot of hostile activity, or I can for instance send 3 couriers down the same route with short intervals to throw off bandits (one courier may even be empty) in order to expend their Binds, that sort of thing. The coordination needs to be perfect, therefore a single player controlling these courier-alts will work well.

And this is how the monitor on my left should look like when I am ready to slap my ponies into motion: metagaming is fun

Or should I be able to see them already? I am talking about Playerpacks, Destinies Twin, that sort of thing.

The linking worked fine, but it currently only sais You are signed up for Open Enrollment: this is for another KS account that I have, that finalized everything in the Paizo Pledgetool. I did not finalize my EE account yet.

At some point, when Adventurer Reward addons are ready to be gifted to people who only have a Goblinworks account, those people will want to see what perks came with the addon. I know there is no real hurry for this since those addons do not come into play any time soon but still.

Also, will there be a deadline where we have to have finalized everything in the Paizo Pledge-tool?

Thanks, and very exited about the landrush!

According to the info in the latest blog from Lee. Nothing fancy (not even colors) just a simple listing of what to find where. And I had to visualize the Bulk Resource Stats(of which there are 7) versus the actual produced Bulk Resources (of which there are 5) for myself.

No blog so I was bored.

It's a .doc file.

I am talking Purple Elvish Forests like in World of Warcraft, or swamps with really freaky flora.

I am not familiar with Golarion at all other then that the landmasses are *huge*, and that the River Kingdoms is only a small part of it.

I know there is something like the World Wound (demons) but that is too far away to ever be part of PFO I think. Not sure how the landscape would look there though.

Could there be places in The River Kingdoms that really deviate from the more earthly (though beautiful) landscapes? Maybe the Meteor hexes(odd radiation influence on Flora, that sort of stuff)?

I think we are ok when it comes to monsters, just wondering about the environments.

TL;DR: corpse-retrievals in a PvP game are unfun and unproductive, especially to retrieve an (almost) empty corpse. In my proposal, Pharasma will come to your aid.

I have been wondering for a long time if the concept of a corpse retrieval is viable in PFO. I think it is not with the current looting rules (which I will NOT contest). Looting stays the same!!

I give a list of cons and pros, a possible solution and another list of cons and pros. Think yourself a lone harvester, or part of a group that got killed in its entirety. Also keep in mind the current idea of 25% of your non-threaded stuff being destroyed, with the remaining 75% of non-threaded stuff being up for grabs.

Cons:

1) It is an unfun timesink, that most likely kills your gumption for whatever other thing you were doing;
2) The corpseretrieval could potentially be impossible because your bind/respawn point is too far away from your corpse anyway;
3) By going back there is a good chance of returning to your killer(s) with even more bad consequences;
4) Good chance of finding nothing on your corpse: either killer takes all, or they destroy what they can not carry (Steelwings Starvation of Enemy Economy);
5) Is it worth the hassle to go back for stuff that the killer figured of no value;

Pro’s:
1) If you go back you may retaliate or get revenge which could be a fun activity; i.e. a corpse could form an incentive for meaningful PvP. I do not see this happening from a lone harvesters point of view though.
2) Creating awarenes with players that they should not wander too far away from any re-spawn point;
3) Creating awareness with players of not going at it alone; though this gives less chance of death, the unfun-ness of corpse retrieval still stays;

With the above cons, I would probably never go back to my corpse, and just take the loss. Corpse recoveries were unfun in Everquest (pure PvE), I can not imagine seeing myself do one ever in PFO.

Possible solution(times mentioned to be tweaked), called PHARASMA’s MERCY:

After you get killed, the corpse opens up for your killer(s) for 3 minutes. After that it it opens up for anyone else (your groupmates, strangers) for another 3 minutes. When those 6 minutes have passed, your corpse poofs, and any item that was left on the corpse gets sent automagically to PHARASMA’s BOX, which is an odd-shaped chest present at all respawn points. If you did not get resurected to your corpse within those 6 minutes by someone, you can check Pharasma’s box at the location you respawned to see if anything was left on the corpse. You can collect any items only at the Box at the location where you respawned, to prevent using this system to get items across distances.

Pro’s:

1) No need to run back if you are alone, can still be resurrected to your corpse in time by surviving groupmates; only wait for 6 minutes at your spawnpoint, check Pharasma’s box and you can go about your business;
2) You do not have to wait untill the 6-minute timer is up: you could go about your business right after you respawned, and collect any possible items from that specific Box at a later time; the Box would only hold items for a certain time though, and a limited amount to avoid people using it as storage;
3) The Potential of MERCY; you may be killed by someone who figured you gave a good fight, or thinks you are an ok guy or whatever: he could decide to take none, or less items then he normally would since he knows you will actually get the rest back, instead of the items rotting or getting looted by a passer by. This is a possible consequence of this feature that I like the most, apart from relieving players of the burden that they may have to go back to their corpse; I think it fits perfectly in a social game.
4) Setback of Death still very much present: you are sent back to your spawn point, threaded items get damaged and you will still lose some, most or all of your items anyway to the killer. Old rules apply here.
5) No possibility for corpse-camping;
6) If you get NO items sent to you in Pharasma’s Box, you could still go for revenge/retaliation if you would;

Cons:
1) None as far as I can see, exept development time off course.

Please shoot holes in this as much as possible.

I can see one possibility myself that may make this solution not necessary/unwanted: if GW plans to have at least one respawn point per Hex, which automatically becomes the re-spawnpoint for anyone killed in that hex. That way you are always so close to your corpse that running back/retaliation/re-joining the group-fight is not only possible, but possibly intended. Even then, most of the cons still apply, imo. Having said this, I do not think each hex will have a respawn-point, these would be horribly camped imo.

It seems the factional dichotomy of Bandits/Merchants creates a lot of discussion, mostly about the "unfairness" of the mechanism.

I think this has partly to do with the fact that the motives of the two factions seem so unreconcilable. Now this seems par for the course for a dichotomous faction like Bandits and Merchants but in this case we are talking two entirely different groups of players, I think.

I think most would agree that trading goods must have a risk in PFO. I was thinking a rival (evil?)merchant faction would create a more even playing-field, where both could dole out the hurt. This means those that want to Stand and Deliver to earn easy money will need to be part of one of the Merchant factions themselves.

This means that players who want to be a "dedicated" bandit, would likely still train up mostly combatskills, and probably never transport a single item, but at least the opposing merchant-faction will have as much right and reason to SAD these merchant-bandits themselves, with their own merchant-thugs. I expect both Factions to have a mix of both(true merchants and their thug buddies that skill up mostly combat) and hopefully they will manage to work together. Faction-perks could be an incentive for cooperation: i.e. every succesfull haul earns perks for the entire faction(thugs and merchants), so does any succesfull SAD-ing of the rival merchant faction.

I realize that this still locks the SAD mechanic into a faction-feature and I am not sure if GW wants to keep it that way, or still wants there to be bandits who can also SAD lone harvesters, that do not belong to any merchant faction.

It would also do away with Bandits as a possible Role, which will not be popular with some. Basically a bandit becomes a merchant-thug. Not sure how hide-outs and such can still come into play here.

Personally I think most of the fear from other players will (and should) come from the political threat of the region someone plays in (Wars and Feuds). So I could do without separate Banditry to add to it. But that is personal.

Looking at the map, I noticed that any Settlement Hex is no further away from another Settlement then 2-4 hexes (not counting the Settlement hex itself).

We also know the size of a single hex in meters. I also recall there was a post about how many meters a player would cover by simply running (not sure of this was on roads or not).

I am trying to figure out how long it would take to run between two settlements, not using roads. This in relation to this post I made about transport times.

I think here lies Goblinworks biggest challenge: in order for the Game of Settlements and accompanying Economy(based on resources) to work, it needs to take time and risk to transport goods across the world.

I can see how a haul of goods can be fun for a merchant, if it succeeds and pays off big time: a bit like winning the lottery every time. Any guards that the merchant has managed to convince to come along seem to have a conflicting interest in the journey though: they probably will want some action, unless the pay-off for the guards is also of lottery-proportions. Anything less and it will feel like doing a menial task for chump change.

Now the variables of Pay-out per journey and Danger I can see get balanced by the mechanic of Supply and Demand. Extreme danger creates large Demand over time causing substantial Pay-off.

So in the end I think it will come down mostly on a single variable: how long will an average journey take? I think all of this can be made fun by making sure the average traveltime of a "hop" is not too long.

I expect traveltime to be tweaked big time during EE.

When the average haul between settlements is only like 10-15 minutes, I can see this mechanic of transporting goods work: it will be short enough to create a lot of traffic, and will appeal to the "one-armed bandit factor": lots of chances, quick results. Because of the short duration, I think even solo-people will try their hand at doing a few runs, even it they can not take much with them. The longer a haul takes, the fewer journeys will be made and the bigger the chance is that Bandits will set up some trap(up to a 100% chance). So many short-duration hauls >> fewer long duration hauls, for balance and fun-factor.

Short-duration hauls also benefit the concept of making friends/alliances with other settlements: this way you can "hop" your goods in 15-minute increments across Friendly Settlements.

Settlements that isolate themselves will have a harder time, since they may have to do much longer duration hauls. They can be fun too, since you are almost 100% sure of a fight. :)

So, traveltime! :) I am pulling the 10-15 minutes out of my hat, but once the resource economy takes off, I expect a lot of feedback from the players about this.

There are a few unknowns here: I take it that caravans (once implemented) will only be allowed to take roads, so traveltimes for them will be longer. Also Fast-travel will use roads (4x speed as I recall), so the 2-4 hex rule does not apply there.

So I am mostly interested what time a player running overland would take to reach a settlement 2-4 hexes away.

Did not see this posted yet, date of the interview is April 1st 2014.

Ryan talks Pathfinder, RPG's and PFO(from 39 minute mark).

Interview of more then an hour.

Have not listened to all of it yet, probably not much new for long-time lurkers but still interesting.

As per this new Store-page on the GW website, it sais so on the Alpha listing and mentions the 2nd month of EE on the Pioneer listing as July 2014.

It also sais May 2014 for start of Alpha which is not really unexpected. But it does make for a rather short Alpha.

Is this a mistake, or does GW feel that this baby is ready for a larger crowd already?

I did think myself that the alpha crowd looked to be a bit small to do serious testing, so they would have to start looking for more people sooner rather then later. Maybe this is why?

Not expecting this for at least a few years since they would require a lot of devwork when it comes to armor and clothing, but it would be so nice to have this. Merchants, Inn-keepers, anyone agree?

I am not asking for extreme customization where you have sliders for everything (as per SWG) but maybe just these two options:

1) Pear-shape
2) Potbelly

For the record: I suspect my avatar on this forum sports a potbelly, he has that potbelly laugh. Me, not so much, 6-pack all the way....

Anyone has special bodyshape requests? I could see some people wanting a very tall, thin, leptosome build fitting for a troubled scholar, Brother Zael perhaps? ;)

When I look at the core list of features that is supposed to be in the game in let's say a year after Open Enrollment (so something like Q1 2017) I get bewildered sometimes, and filled with doubt that some of these systems are simply too hard to implement. That the game has too many features that are each in itself very innovative. But at the same time, it is these systems that make PFO so incredably intriguing for me.

So, mostly for my own sake, I made a list of these core features and gave them a score that indicates how important I feel the feature is, and a personal assessment of how hard it seems to implement.

This is not a doom and gloom post, but one born out of enthusiasm and some hesitation about the hugeness of this project.

Importance goes from 1-10(most important) and off course that score is personal.

1)Player created Settlements; 10, tough balancing act concerning things like DI, Corruption, access-flags, membership, banks and so forth; a major challenge;

2)Settlement Wars; 9, entails so many smaller features that I do not even want to go there;

3)Alignment; 8, pretty hard to create some fun gameplay out of this; potential for grinding and metagaming;

4)Reputation-system; 9, this is imo the hardest thing to get right; metagaming will reach new heights with this feature;

5)Resource-economy/Gathering/Harvesting; 10, awesome feature but dependent on 6;

6)Locality of resources/regionalization of markets; 10, awesome feature, which again seems to be dependent on 7;

7)Transportation-system with sufficient delay/hazards; 11!; this seems to me very hard to balance and make fun; but if they manage it, it will be one of the pillars of the game imo;

8)Feuds; 8, dependent on 9;

9)PoI's;9 these seem to be the biggest incentive for PvP outside of a direct Siege situation; very important to give PvP a purpose and give substance to the political landscape and "spread" PvP across the lands, next to their importance for Settlements (and the Sieges of these); Important system that will need a lot of work.

10)SAD/banditry; 7, tough balancing act, depends on 7 and 5, i.e. enough players that are not holed up in their settlement;

11) Escalation cycles; 8, seems tough to make it into something more interesting then just an accelerating spawn cycle; if sufficient boons then it will add to PvP, crafting and banditry;

12) Personal Travel; 8, this ties into pretty much all other features, from Wars to Harvesting; balance between too slow (unfun) and too fast(will mess up other features) will be tough to keep.

13)Crafting; 10, awesome feature, could be extremely deep when it ties enough into 1,2,5,6,7 and 11

14)Formations; 7, sounds very tough to implement, but if this would cause large PvP battles to be less hectic then I am all for it. :)

15)Corpse looting; 6, balancing act, ties into several other features for balancing, mostly 4,5,7,10 and 12; I can see corpse-looting
and items poofing on death be heavily tweaked against other systems that take items out of the economy.

16)Last but not least: One single world, that expands over time.......; 12! I can not even begin to think about the hardware implications of this, the network-engineering, the melt-downs.... let alone the creation of more "land to play with" when the players are pushing against the boundaries of the game. it is one of *the* biggest draws of the game though, it would in fact put the word EPIC in PFO. I so hope they can stay true to this.

So, my simple take on PFO spiced with my worries! :)

Would this help against the problems of settlements placing scout-alts all across the map and placing low-rep "monster"-alts (or gimp-squads as I call them)all over their controlled hexes for quick dispatch of unwanted elements?

Since this is a game where distance matters, this could make it much harder to call upon your Monsters in the Basement in order to put down trespassers or a gathering party. Before the Monsters would arrive, the gathering party could make a run for it: it would be up to the "offensive" party then to decide whether to chase them (take a hit to rep) or let them go.

It could also prevent the tactic of "camping" a player who quickly logged out when he saw an enemy party approaching, waiting for him to log back in. Off course a log-out timer would still apply (the usual 30 seconds or so). Also /quit will keep you vulnerable in the gameworld at least 30 seconds or more, you know, the usual stuff.

Some notes:
Nearest locations could be, allied PoIs and Outposts, Inns, your own settlement or allied settlement. Off course if you log out at one of those locations you would log back in there.

When you log out during a caravan voyage, you abandon your carts and lose them: I expect the voyages of caravans to be done in a single gamesession, or at least to go from friendly city to friendly city (or Inn). I expect the same for gathering parties.

When you log out there is a 30 minute timer before you get defaulted to the nearest friendly log-in location: this for those unfortunate LD's especially when you are in a caravan or was harvesting something good.
This also to prevent from the mechanic to be "gamed" to get across the map.

There's one tactic that I have not considered yet: that players will have "Monster" alts trailing their mains wherever they go, as boxes. I hope one of the Hawks will fill me in on this. :)

I also want to say beforehand that I am very sorry to propose another mechanic that may ruin the sandbox. ;) Also, I remember a game that defaulted your log in to a safe location, I think it was a MMO, anyone knwo if this mechanic has been used before?

This is the sort of plan that usually has some huge oversights: please let me hear them. Personally I am not a fan of not logging in where you logged out, just wondering how big of a problem all these alts scattered across the world are going to be.

Here is my simple take on the monetary value of an average MMO account: a formula that uses the variables of:

- Playtime-investment(X);

- Powercurve(how easy or hard is it to make a high level powerful character, Y);

- Popularity of the game(Z);

Let us call it the Rule of the 3 P's.

Example: a MMO with lots of experienced players (x goes down due to veterans knowing what they are doing) and an easy powercurve(y goes down since char is easily maxed) which is sortoff impopular (z goes down) equals a not so valuable account.

However, PFO accounts add another variable(let us call it A): spent XP(that has been paid for over time).

So my hypothesis would be:
For an account that has a 3-year old character that has been maxed on xp every month, could we simply add an amount of 36x15dollars=540 dollars to the value of the account?

I realize that the variable of A is strongly dependent on variable X (playertime investment) since a character with just accumulated xp (up to a certain maximum allowed by GW)has less value then one where the xp has been applied already. And variable Y (powercurve) would play less of a role since the curve in the PFO system would be spread out over years of characterbuilding. Whereas variable Z would be as important as ever. :)

A few notes: personally I love the idea of paying for xp of which a max amount per month can be used to skill up a single character: the xp is already in your pocket, now hopefully the goals and achievements in-game for your character will be so much fun that you have no problem applying all that xp.

I also understand that the Skill system allows for a newbie to quickly master a few skills so that they can be viable in the Game of Settlements, but there is no way around the fact that years-old characters that have been maxed monthly have a certain inherited monetary value to them.

If PFO becomes successful, will subbed accounts simply add up their value over time?

Could they be? I have been wondering about Inns a lot and what they will become in the game. A place for travelers(buffs?),caravans(buffs?), the wounded(healing), refugees (the temporary homeless) or the Hunted(running from Bluddwolf)?

The KS said that as long as the owner pays upkeep it is immune for warfare and can not be taken away from him. This implies that Inns could develop a slightly different role in the game then your average settlement building/Poi. The fact that Inns (some or all?)will be placed out in the wild along travelroutes makes them hugely intriguing assets in PFO imo.

Making Inns a wanted destination for players has always been a difficult problem in MMO's imo. SWG managed to do it at least for a while since players were required to enter one so they could get rid of their wounds through player-entertainers, since there was no other way to do that. Afk player-entertainers quickly made their way into the game but at least Inns were social hubs for a time.

We know PFO will have wounds from crits that need a safe place (or certain specific spells) to heal so will an Inn be such a safe place? It would certainly make sense, but how safe should an Inn be?
I think the ramifications of an Inn being a safe-haven could be huge: they could be even more huge when the Inn is NOT a safe haven but would still be very much in demand through game-play mechanics (like being able to heal Wounds).

Will they play a role for trade-caravans? An Inn could be a place where a specific defensive "caravan" buff could be acquired; off course this very fact would also draw bandits to the Inn because they know caravans will want to visit the Inn for that reason.

I am usually not good in predicting the ramifications of implementing certain mechanics, like the Inn being a PvP safe haven: I know others are much better in that (and off course Ryan).

If they made Inns safe Havens(which would be a HUGE beneficial effect of the Inn) which (exploitable) scenarios could develop?

If they do NOT make Inns safe havens, then what should they do to make Inns a wanted destination, and what sort of scenarios would develop from that?

TLDR: paint me a picture of what could happen around Inns in the wild if GW manages to make them usefull in some way.

:) You know they are out there!

Ryan seems to fully expect that some (many?)people will run multiple accounts and I think he is very realistic in thinking that. Lots will probably have a dedicated Crafter/Trader account but I am sure multi-boxing(simultaneous playing your accounts) will happen too.

Anyway, the number 36 is a bit out there, but since commands as /follow are so important for PvE-boxers, I am wondering what Formations could actually mean for those people that like to multibox in PvP games.

Disclaimer: *box*, not *bot*!

AKA: where is everyone?!

Imo there are 2 large reasons for the emptying out of the game-environment that you see in so many MMO's:

• In your average Themepark MMO the maturing playerbase always ends up in the higher end content/areas;

• Instancing of repeatable content, and instanced Guild housing.

The first point will hopefully be adressed becuase PFO is a skill-based sandbox with no specific endgame that is tied to levels.

The second point: I know instancing can be a wonderful tool to deliver high quality content for specific purposes/players, but in certain implementations it carries a great risk of emptying out the gameworld.

• Instanced Guild housing, especially when these deliver all sorts of utilities: Guilds will hole up in here, preparing for battle, using utilities, chatting.

• Repeatable instanced content, like dungeons or missions.

I have not heard much yet about how GW will go about housing for Chartered Companies but I hope these will be open structures, so that anyone can actually witness the gathering, as long as they are welcome in that settlement in the first place off course. If not then I fear that settlements will soon be nothing more then empty scenery where groups of players will be hiding in their instanced Guildhouses or Crafthouses or Tradehouses.

Instanced content can be a killer too, especially if it is easily repeatable and very beneficial to the player. Now the dungeon-spawning(and discovering) system that GW has talked about looks interesting, but if the spawnrate is frequent, if they are easily found and if they give a nice reward, then I can already see where half of the players will be...in some instanced dungeon.

I see people(and devs!) talking in posts about towns and townlife and bar-brawls and players travelling on roads, and it makes me giddy like everyone else: but very doubtfull too wether GW can make their world so that there are in fact "well traveled roads", like Lee Hammock mentioned in the thread about fast travel......

In fact the only game where I would still encounter players travelling the roads a year after release was Everquest, since it did not have instanced content or instant travel(exept for ports from Druids and Wizards) at that time yet.

I would LOVE to see that return.

I really dislike teamspeak, it takes me completely out of my immersion which is still the number 1 reason I play these games. :) I see several interesting companies publicized here, and I understand why teamspeak for some of them is more or less a requirement, but even with silent rooms, or just listening in it is just not for me. I also understand that it is hard for a company to allow both, since you get a split in your communications.

Some companies do not mention teamspeak at all, and I was wondering about those.

Any companies out there that specifically plan on not using it?