Valkenr's page

Payment through Paypal
You cover cost of shipping.

I have no idea what these are worth, as there isn't an established market for them. I see these selling for $8-12 individually elsewhere. I think my prices are fair, if not low. I'll consider offers other than what I ask. I know these aren't a huge collectors item, and most want to use them for the Emerald Spire campaign.

What I have:
6 Sets of the Emerald Spire Miniatures: link
5 Sets of the Reaper Pewter Miniatures: (Murgmo & Baron Tervin Blackshield)

Prices:
1 Emerald Spire Set:
Price: $30.00 ea.
+$12.65 Shipping: USPS priority mail.

1 Reaper Set:
Price: $8 ea.
+Shipping: $5.95 USPS priority mail.

If you want more than one of these, I will pack them together and give you a new shipping quote depending on the amount. (will either be $12.65 or $17.90) I may remove the first packaging layer (they are individually and group wrapped), to allow a better fit.

I prefer to stick to US customers. If you are elsewhere, and these aren't selling(or you up the offer), we can work out a shipping method.

If you are interested PM me what you want, and your email address, and I'll send you a paypal invoice.

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Sorry if this isn't appropriate for this forum, I didn't know where to post, or if the greater Paizo forums allow sales.

I had two of my friends that I gave guild-pack invites have decided they didn't want to start paying subscriptions, as they weren't playing the game. So they gave the accounts back to me.

Due to misunderstandings and difficulties during launch, the accounts never got their DT created. I created them today and yesterday. Both accounts have minimal xp spending in basic feats.

Both have spent the 4 months given by the kickstarter pledge, and I have paid for the next month.

Account 1:
-Active since start
-Character 1: ~295,000 XP as of 5/2
-Character 2: Created 5/2 (Twin)

Account 2:
-Inactive for 2 days.
Character 1: ~290,000 XP as of 5/3
Character 2: Created 5/3 (Twin)

PM your offers, I'll update with the highest offers I haven't accepted.

Payment through paypal.

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For both accounts:
Reward Quantity
New Player Pack 1
Destinys Twin 0
Daily Deals 1
Alliance Pack 1
Early Enrollment 1
Soundtrack Download 1
1 Month game time 0
Head Start 1
Shield Mate 1
Behind the Scenes PDF 1
Character Name Reservation 1

irc.mibbit.com
#PFO, #PFOhelp, #PFOtrade

I made a post earlier today that I realize now wasn't very informative to those with no idea what IRC is.

IRC, or Internet Relay Chat is an archaic mode of communication developed in the days of dialup, before the time of VOIP.

For socially based MMOs it can be an invaluable tool, especially when the game does not support global communication. It allows players who are not in-game to connect with the community in a real-time way. This is great for help and trade channels, because someone offline may have the answer to your question, or the rare item you are looking for.

I have set up 3 channels: #PFO, #PFOhelp, and #PFOtrade.
In IRC the # designates that the following word is the name of a channel.
What they are for, should be apparent.

The easiest way to connect to these channels is through the mibbit web-based irc client.
Step 1: Go here.
Step 2: Click "Launch Mibbit Client"
Step 3: Choose a Nick (Nickname)
Step 4: Enter: "#PFO" into the channel entry box
Step 5: Click Connect
and now you can chat

From there you can type "/join #PFOhelp, and/or "/join #PFOtrade"

If you want to learn more about the mibbit client or IRC in general, google it.

On the channels I operate, there is a zero-tolerance policy on impersonation If I find out you are pretending to be another member of the community, you will get an un-repealable lifetime ban.

---

If any GW employees want to identify themselves in the channel, message me(/msg) or anyone with a star* by their name, we'll do some email conformation to verify your identity, and identify you in the channel.
For future reference, if any GW employees are in the channel and have been verified, there will be half a star* by their name, and they will have a "GW_" prefix.

*The full star represents an Operator, this may be different if you are using another irc client.
**The half star represents the "half-op" permission set, this may be different if you are using another irc client.

#PFO
#PFOhelp

I tried this back a while and it didn't catch on, and there was a recent push in T7V to give it a go again now that things are more active, so I thought I would try the community channels again too.

I set up two channels on the mibbit IRC servers: #PFO and #PFOhelp

Mibbit is a browser based IRC client that can be found here, it should be pretty straight forward.

Please idle on the server, and do not leave if you see nothing happening. You have no idea how many times I have scrolled up in chat to seen a bunch of people join and leave within minutes of eachother. I'd really like to see the #PFOhelp channel catch on, as it is very useful to have a non-forum where people OOG can help people in-game instantly.

***Impersonation is a zero tolerance offense and will result in a lifetime ban.***
...Seriously, don't even do it jokingly.

If any GW employees want to identify themselves in the channel, message me(/msg) or anyone with a star* by their name, we'll do some email conformation to verify your identity and identify you in the channel.
For future reference, if any GW employees are in the channel and have been verified, there will be half a star* by their name, and they will have a "GW_" prefix.

I know not everyone uses these forums, so please spread the word in your own channels if you want this to catch on.

For now this will be administered by T7V, if necessary we will identify members of the community to help with moderation. Please don't ask for moderator permissions, that only makes me suspicious of your intentions.

*The full star represents an Operator, this may be different if you are using another irc client.
**The half star represents the "half-op" permission set, this may be different if you are using another irc client.

Cheatle brought this to my attention and Nihimon and I did a small test. If someone has evidence to the contrary please share it.

When you get a recipe drop in a group you will not be able to learn it.

Doing a 'prereq check' is not verification, that check appears to happen regardless if the recipe works or not.

So,
Don't form parties, until it is fixed.

Just looking for an update on what's happening with these.

When can we see them, how will they compare to other times, and what kind of functionality will be around them?

Before we were told they were unlootable, because nothing pisses off a customer like getting ganked and losing something you gave money for. We were also told that they wouldn't be the best items, but they also wouldn't be the worst.

What I don't want to see is them coming into the game after everyone is 'leveled' above them, there seems to be a lot getting pushed back to make this sept 15th release. Perhaps they should be re-chargeable 'spells' that enchant current gear to give/replace some keywords for a set amount of time. I would like to see them useful through the life of a character, I hate special items that you only end up using for a week or so, then you stick them in your bank forever.

After seeing that Base Attack Bonus 4 (or 5?) was upwards of 50.000 XP, I wanted to start a discussion on how people feel about these large cost feats.

My first experience in EvE lasted between 1-2 months. The moment I queued up Carrier V, I lost all interest when I saw a 60 day training time.

Keeping people interested is very important, from my experience in gaming, this means that they are actively advancing their character in a very obvious way for a long period of time. I would like to be see people able to pick up at least a feat every two days that moves them towards maxing their role. And for the first few months, people should be able to pick up multiple feats a day.

So instead of having something that costs tens of thousands of experience, you give it lots of requirements, or trickle down that xp into the required feats.

I'm contemplating selling some extra Guild-Pack invites from the Kickstarter and wanted clarification on a few things, so if I do, I can list everything.

1. Can the invite be attached to a current GW account? if it can, are there any limitations?

2. Can the account be linked back to Paizo for the PDF Super Pack and other digital material? If so, how?

You can watch my stream here!

There's construction going on up my street, and they don't have a good track record with my ISP(they pulled the fiber line and smashed our box once), and they seem to be having fun bandwidth fluctuations the last few weeks, so I may go in and out.

I won't be talking much if at all over the stream, hop on T7V's Teamspeak Server if you want to chat.

Thank you Nihimon for being the only one paying attention to the Alpha contest and getting me an invite!

We have added a live stream browser to our new website. It can be accessed via this direct link:
LINK.

If you would like to feature your stream on our website, register then fill out the application "Add Live Stream".

This link will take you directly to our applications list, though you must be registered to see them.
LINK.

I was just thinking, there's going to be a lot of people that want to be at the 'top' of the xp count. This is going to lead to people going out of their way to start their subscription the moment EE is live.

I would suggest not requiring a subscription for the first week of EE, and everyone who creates a character during that week gets XP points retroactive since the 'start' of the game.

I'm guessing you will have to activate at least one month to get the basic training to do anything. And people with borderline systems that don't want to play before things are optimized, may not know their system can't handle it until they are a few days in and hit that key encounter that kills their system. This free week gives them a chance to see if they can run the MVP.

The end product is that everyone who creates a character, and starts their subscription during the first week is on the same level. And with the pressure down to be in minute 1, you won't get quite the spike. And the people that need to check if they can run the game, get a good chance.

I think this would be neat. And it could allow people to communicate with people in-game while out of game.

After the landrush kicked off, I've barely been visiting these forums, because all I see is post after post of recruitment threads. I'd like to see these off in a nice location where I only see them if I want to.

These are kind of all the same question, I can't think of a good way to ask it.

Is there anything special about the first 3 winners, or are they just the first 3 in the sequence of 33?

Will there be more focused testing with these 3(aside from the obvious extra focus of being first)? Will the time between TEO and Pax getting their settlement, be the same as the time between T7V and the top slot in Phase II?

I believe the original plan was to give out the settlements sequentially, not all at once. Is there a rough estimation on how long the delay between settlements will be?

Looks nice.

Account linking needs some work. The paizo side seems to only want me to create an account, it should be able to link to an existing goblinworks.com account.

This is mostly intended to be advice for those on the fence about participating in PvP and those who don't want to PvP, but still want to play in the PFO world.

PvP is going to be an important part of the game. No offense to GW but it gives them the ability to be lazy and cost effective. No game can churn out PvE content as fast as people eat it up, and the costs associated with doing so are insane, that is why a game like SWTOR costs 300 million to produce. PvP provides unpredictable encounters that are different every time.

I expect 99.99% of the players will be forced into a PvP encounter at one time or another. It seems to me that we have a lot of people coming from a heavy background in theme park games, or are new to MMO's entirely. In a sandbox such as this, you can't enter PvP with the same mindset. An OPvP sandbox, is very different from an OPvP theme park server. I'm seeing a lot of people seeking shelter from PvP, which is okay, to an extent. But you have to have a healthy ratio of protectors to protectees. I'm guessing the more successful groups will have minimal members that can't defend them selves at all.

The first thing you have to realize is that your death is not a huge setback, if you are playing smart.

Carry only what you need.

You should never go around carrying all your valuables. Inventory management is a large part of the game, even if you are not PvPing. A PvE death can be just as big of setback if you aren't managing your inventories properly. You should always have equivalent backup gear, and backups for your backups. Just because you can use all 'top tier' gear doesn't mean you should. Only bring out the good stuff when you know you need it, and are ready to lose it. Don't go exploring in your best gear, take some mid-level gear that is just enough to fend off PvE threats, and allow you some ability to escape from other players.

Threading helps a lot in this respect. It allows you to break this guideline. Since you can protect pieces of gear, you can carry some better items with you.

Make multiple trips. If you know you are going to be in danger, don't risk all your inventory. If you are emptying a POI, or moving settlements, make multiple trips and mix everything in. Losing 1 out of 4 shipments, is better than losing everything in one.

If you don't already, I suggest playing Minecraft. It teaches you a lot about managing your gear, taking unnecessary risks, and being able to outfit quickly and get back to where you died. Most of all, it teaches you to learn from your mistakes. The first mistake usually involves losing a few hours worth of diamond mining in a lava accident.

Be ready to fight for your home

The more people there are in a settlement, the more lucrative its pillaging. If the majority of the inhabitants have aversions to PvP, they are an easy target. Fighting for your home does not mean that you have to sacrifice anything significant. I'm guessing that most Settlements or Kingdoms will offer compensation for wartime losses, or simply provide their members with 'PvP Gear'.

Most of the time, PVP is not about individual skill. You can have the best 1v1 fighter, and still have the worst army. If you are not skilled at combat, you can still help, and I don't mean by being cannon fodder. Tactics and planning are the key deciding factor in a PvP encounter. A 'zerg' column is easily broken by a smaller force with competent leadership. In Planetside 2 I was part of an outfit that specialized in breaking superior forces. We didn't have anybody special, our membership was open, but we had good leadership.

Be ready to fight, even if you are a crafter. Take some basic combat training no matter what you are doing. If you don't want to get in the thick of it, get some ranged training. You firing arrows at your attackers is much more useful than cowering in the back. Don't put all your faith on your defenders, fight for your self, and you will come out on top more often. Some DPS is better than no DPS.

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If anybody has something to add, bold your text so it is easier to pick you out of the thread.

Can we get some better summaries for the blogs?

It would be nice to have something like:

"In this weeks blog Ryan talks about the relative merits of the Goblin Ball trade, and a we bring you a video blog from Lee and Stephen explaining what we can expect to find in the different hex types."

The new setup is nice but still has issues. I like moving away from a huge single page, but now it's harder to find specific sections as I can't ctrl+f search for keywords. So I am driven to google "site:Goblinworks.com, ________" which works, but it would be nice to have everything on the website.

One of these would be nice: [url]https://www.google.com/cse/[/url]

For those of you unfamiliar with the term. A sleeper is a placeholder for your character when you leave the game. They have all your inventory and if they die, you will be dead when you come back to the game. In essence, when you log off, your character passes out.

I think it could add two things to the game:
1. Makes people think about where they are logging off. You would basically need to be in a player structure that protects sleepers.

2. Creates a 'sleeper hunt' activity for less reputable players.

You should be able to train abilities to protect your sleeping body, and threaded items will still function the same. You could also set it up so you could rob a sleeper getting access to 100% of the non threaded inventory. This would require training, and be open to failure, each attempt would be a further hit to alignment and reputation.

What do you all think?

I remember some discussion about this, back when flags were introduced, and I'm not sure if it has been discussed much since then.

One thing I see missing is the ability to temporarily claim territory, and be able to attack people that do not leave when they are told. This could be used for protecting resourcing operations from unknown players, hide something you have found, or keep players away from a fallen comrade.

Here's how it could work:

1. You target the intruder and press the 'Stand Your Ground' button.
2. A circle is drawn around your character [on the intruder's UI] for 50 meters**(EDIT:: This should be from the point the player was standing when the SYG was issued, it shouldn't move with the player.)

The intruder now has two choices:
A. Leave the area within 30 seconds.
If you do not leave, you can be attacked without reputation shift.

B. press your 'Stand Your Ground' button.
The 'Stander' and the 'Intruder' (and their respective parties) can now fight without loss of reputation or alignment, this is basically a duel.

Limitations:
-Each hex should be split into sub sections, and these subsections should track when players come and go. SYG can only be used on players who enter the subsection after you. This prevents a group from taking over a current operation without consequence.

-It is impossible to SYG near a structure you do not own.

-You cannot SYG in a NPC controlled hex.

-Settlements can choose that in their hex: anyone can SYG, only members can SYG, only kingdom members can SYG, or no-one can SYG.

**Actual value would be determined through playtesting balance. But this should be 50% larger than the longest ranged attack(by a player, not a siege machine).
***not in your party, or company

I'm going to preface this by stating my view in regards to Open PvP. From my experience, PvP is what keeps games fresh, PvE is never challenging, because in the end, every fight comes down to a formula, and it is impossible to generate PvE content fast enough to appease the masses. PvP provides unpredictable gameplay, and is necessary for a sustained game.

I want bandits to be in the game, and I don't want players to be discouraged from playing them. Chaotic Evil should have equivalent viability and access as Lawful Good, but everything I'm seeing leads me to believe that Lawful Good is going to give the most benefit. Reputation just makes this even more skewed.

I think the current system is overcomplicated and more than there needs to be.

Threading already makes it so death is a non-issue, so there shouldn't be complicated mechanics around PvP.

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I do not think Reputation is necessary to keep the game from devolving into a 'kill fest'. Players who are killing constantly should shift Chaotic Evil, separating them from the Lawful and Good parts of the map. I want there to be lots of criminals, because I want lots of targets. The solution isn't to moderate PvP interactions, but to lessen the effect of solo death(which has already been done with threading), and limit the amount of time a player can commit crimes in lawful territory.

Everything should be available in lawful areas of the map, but commercial quantities of rare materials should be found in zones far from NPC cities*. As a general rule, the farther you move from an NPC city or road, the greater your rewards should be. 'late game' development should, practically, require materials obtained from lawless territory.

A criminal flag is the only flag you need. This is given when you break a law in lawful territory. Anyone can attack a criminal without consequence. Since death is not final in the game zone, it is the penalty for every crime. The main sources of criminal flags will be: Attacking other players, Murdering other players, and stealing from containers that do no belong to you(dead players, npc/monster loot you didn't get the kill for)

As you move away from NPC cities the protection you receive should go down. As it stands now, you are protected 2 hexes away from NPC cities, lets call this 'Protected' territory. This is a good size for now, in the future this could expand out one more as the game population increases. If a character with a criminal flag enters Protected territory, they are attacked on sight by NPC guards. 4 more hexes** from the Cities, or hexes next to a road hex should be 'Lawful' territory, where you can still get a criminal flag, but won't be attacked by NPC's. Outside of that, there should be no laws, so no criminal acts are possible. When players get near the boundaries to either of these types of territory they should get a warning of some kind.

Loosely related points:
Killing a non-criminal player should always shift you chaotic.
Killing an evil player as a good player should always shift you good(one shift per 24hrs)
The more 'good' a player is than you, the more evil you shift if you kill them if they are not a criminal.
A settlement should be able to declare it's hex and the surrounding 6 as lawful. This would require upkeep of a very expensive structure, that is impossible to maintain without heavy resource flow from unlawful land.
If you are attacked by a player, for 2 weeks, or until you kill them, you and anyone in your current party can attack and kill them without shifting alignment or getting flagged.

Let's check this against the desired outcome:

Behaviors we don't want:

• PvP conflicts where the death of the target means no gain for the attacker, i.e. randomly killing people for no reason.
  
• Abuse of new players.
  
• Players cooperating to game reputation and alignment systems to their advantage.
  
• Players willfully committing crimes or evil acts under the shield of reputation or alignment penalties so onerous no one would try and stop them.

• Death of a target is never meaningless if there is any chance for loot. People can disguise to look like new characters, or use fresh characters as mules, so there is no hard determination outside of the ability to see everyone's inventory from a distance. Go play Rust, sometimes running around naked is safer than using full kevlar, until people catch on.
  
• Starting zones are protected, death is a minor inconvenience, and the attacker will not be able to keep abusing. It would take a huge number of people targeting a single character to make a problem, and that fringe case shouldn't be considered. And still, in a protected area the player should always be able to retrieve their inventory.
  
• No reputation, the only thing I could think of trying would getting a 2nd player to loot the corpse, but a NPC guard should attack and kill the player well before the looting action is completed, and the inventory compromised.
  
• If they kill players, they get flagged. If they steal from players, they get flagged. No way around it.
  

In summary, you can go out and kill all you want, but you will not be able to enter Protected territory without getting killed by the first NPC that sees you, or you will have to only kill in unlawful territory. People who want to avoid being killed should stick to protected areas. People who want their killer to have consequences need to stay in lawful areas. If you are traveling into unlawful territory you have no right complain about getting killed, and should expect it and be prepared for it.

*We can assume the NPC's harvested all the commercial quantities of rare materials around and near their cities.
**When determining distance, do not move through impassable boundaries.

I built my computer with Nvidia 3Dvision in mind, and finally have gotten around to purchasing it. It adds a lot to games, but very few will properly render. Some games look great, but then the lighting and shadows render differently for each eye, or you have overlapping graphics rendering in a conflicting way, such as a background at screen depth, and models 'inside' the screen.

I ask that you refrain from dumping too much visual information onto the UI, as that is where the majority of 3D issues arise. As much information as possible should be rendered in the 3D environment. Things like name tags, damage numbers, or brackets around a character should be rendered around the center of that character, not around their projection on the UI.

Also make sure light sources are static to the world, and not at all based on camera position. Shadows are the largest form of incompatibility, turning off shadows is the most common fix to 3D problems. The sun should be a light source that circles the game terrain

Getting on the short list (<50) of '3D vision ready' games would probably help game sales. I know there are more people like me trying to get the full effect of their 3d setups.

Juts want to put this out there.

And there's an average 1.5 inches of flexible real estate on each finger, half for the thumbs.

Also, Mr T.

Humans can wear a bracelet, and bracers.

Humans can wear rings under their handwraps.

Humans can wear anklets, and toe rings too.

Humans can wear layers of clothing(i.e. more than one shirt).

...

If you haven't figured it out yet. This is about character accessories, and the limiting factors that plague the current game base. Have adverse effects, make certain things cancel each-other out. But in the end. I should be able to have as much enchanted jewelry as Mr. T has regular jewelry. Even if my character dies when they look at the color purple, I want to be able to do it.

I know this has been discussed before, but I want to create a new thread with ideas based on current information. This community is very prone to forming ideas and not changing them with the new announcements.

I do not want the game to display everyone character name, you should have to do a /greet and pick and choose what a person can see. Then you can set a custom nameplate that will show when you character can determine their identity.

I think it is very important to have a way to hide your identity. There should be collection of skills tied into recognizing people and identifying things about someone. Here's a few ideas: 'Recognition', 'Identification', 'Body language',and 'Memory'. each can have a few advanced skills to refine certain aspects.

Memory determines how many people you can remember, I don't know what the max should be but the idea is that you can only have information on so many people(and possibly locations and items if GW wants to go super complex) in your memory, and new memories diminish older ones. The more you interact with someone the higher they remain in your current memory. The higher a person is in your memory the easier it is to recognize them, but the more memory they take up. People in your lower memory aren't easy to recognize, but when you do recognize them you get more information than if you just met someone.

Journals can be used to record current memories, but are volatile inventory and must be threaded. When you read a journal entry it brings back the desired memory.

Identification determines how munch you can learn about someone by looking at them. a basic character(minus any racial bonuses) /identify a person and get back their height weight and race, while more advanced trained characters may get information on what they are carrying(on the outside, swords, daggers, jewelry) and maybe attribute scores to see what kind of skills they are focusing(tied into the change in appearance Ryan has talked about)

Recognition ties in with memory to strengthen the ability to recognize people in your memory.

Body Language determines how well you can tell if someone is lying, when you formally meet a player you choose what information you want to share, and can modify what you share to create lies. If you see someone told you a lie, you can call them out, or make a note that they lied to you.

Deception determines how well you can lie. The effectiveness of this ability is increased by your Body Language skill. The idea being that if you know what not to do, you are a better liar.

I want players to be able to hide from their friends. There should be things like masks and cloaks that give you 100% disguise, and there should be abilities to unmask players, as well as masks that strap on tightly(same logic as a sword chained to your gauntlet). If you kill a player(or just see the corpse) you can see their face, and if you see them again, you will recognize them.

Organizations can have insignia that characters can turn on to overtly show their relationship so people can tell who is in what organization, and the insignia can be another thing you put in your memory. And these insignia can be see either by talking to a player, or seeing it posted somewhere in-game.

~just some semi-organized ideas

The thing that bugs me about settlements is the segregation. I don't want to see people being forced to play separately because of alignments. I want to see LG Paladins and evil barbarians able to play and be successful together. Just because my friend and I have differing character concepts, shouldn't mean our activities are limited, or ether of us must change our concepts.

When I think of a settlement, I equate it to an Assassins Creed city(maybe half the size). And would like things like sub-factions within the settlement to be possible, so you could have your paladins that patrol their district, a thieves guild in another, and so on.

I don't think alignment should play a large role in the hex as a whole. I think there should be some alignment specific things, but it should only be the top 10% of so of training. Like 19th and 20th paladin badges must be from a settlement that bans evil, and the 19th and 20th barbarian badges must be from a settlement that bans lawful.

So I propose this: Districts

Each hex is divided up into 7 sub hexes, and the sub-hex the settlement occupies is divided into 7 district sub-hexes.

When a settlement is erected, you get one district, the administrative district, this is largely static, and not much can be done to it, it houses basic general training, training, and banking facilities, along with the "town hall" which is the hub for buying improvements for your settlement. There is no alignment(not TN) to the administrative district, though you can set global alignment restrictions for the settlement if you choose.

As you build more resources, you can start constructing other districts. These start out basic, and can you can spend more resources to improve them. Districts must have a defined threshold for each alignment axis and reputation. These thresholds must ban any two non neutral alignments, but can go further. You can ban lawful and good, but also require members to be at least -5000 evil. This means your settlement can be at most, open to 3 alignment possibilities 1 step from eachother and TN.

So an evil district could setup as follows:
*-3000 or less Good/evil
*any chaotic/law
*2000 or more reputation.

The settlement alignment restrictions overide the district restrictions, and district restrictions are automatically changed to fit in. So in the above example, if there was a threshold of -2000 chao/law for the the settlement, the evil district would be changed to:
*-3000 or less Good/evil
*-2000 or more chaotic/law
*2000 or more reputation.

If the alignment of the settlement is permitting, one district should be able to house 150% of a single category. This makes it so you can have setups like:
-Masterwork sword crafting facilities(100% of single category)
-1-6th badge fighter training(10%)
-1-6th badge Cleric training(10%)
-minor housing(20%)
-small market(10%)
or
-1-20th badge wizard training(100%)
-1-10th badge sorcerer training(30%)
-minor housing(20%)
or
-1-15th badge rogue training(70%)
-1-15th badge bard training(70%)
-shanty town (10%)

The amount you can advance district buildings is limited by that 1000 point scale that one of the Ryan or Lee mentioned representing the vulnerability. Good facilities = more risk. I'm torn between this limiting how much one district can advance, or how specialized their building can be, or both. I'm leaning towards just limiting how specialized, so an 800 settlement could fill all 150% with lesser facilities, but you still have to be 1000 for the good stuff.

During warfare each district(expect administrative) acts as a 'capture point', once all districts are captured, the administrative district must be captured to take control of the settlement.

I got tired of scrolling through one huge page of blogs, and at the same time wanted to create an editable version of my list of important blogs The Blog Posts Everyone Should Read. So I took all my blogs and dumped them into The Seventh Veil's Wiki.

You can see the blog list here.

This will be updated as new blogs come out, expect new blogs to be up by the day following their release. The blogs in bold are those I consider 'important' as they discuss game mechanics, which are a frequently brought up, linked and misinterpreted.

These are exact copies of the GW blogs, minus a few incompatible html links(embedded google maps and youtube), and some minor formatting changes to fit in the wiki. All the blogs have links to the original and forum discussion, as GW has, at the bottom of each page.

If you find anything that is missing, or errors in the blog pages only please PM me here or on The Seventh Veil's forums, please don't post them in this thread.

I don't really see much value in a bounty if it is a single kill quest. I like what EVE has done, when you kill a player with a bounty, you get a reward proportional to how much money the target lost.

When players issue a bounty, it shouldn't be a single quest, it should stay open for a week, and re-issue until the contract is finished. For the contract to finish, the target player must lose an amount of money specified by the contract. If you have the contract, and kill the target, you get an amount proportional to the reward money based on what they lost. So if the contract is 1000 coin, and the target must lose 100 coin, you get 10 coin for every 1 coin you make the target lose.

The value of the kill is determined by the regional average market value of what they lost.

If a contract isn't taken, or is not emptied, after a week, the player can collect their money, minus the posting fee.

I wasn't too worried early last year, the punishment systems seemed fine. You kill someone in 'protected' territory, you could get major consequences. I want the game to have a heavy PvP focus, but the PvP punishments seem to be going to far.

I feel it is important to have a healthy population of 'bad' players, it keeps things interesting. The rewards for being bad or good, should carry the same magnitude, but be different things. If someone wants to go around killing people, they make easy money, but they have to pay more for things, but not so much that it is preferable to be one side or the other.

I would like to see alignments evenly spaced out, and each side should have a disadvantage for every advantage. LG and CE should be able to become equally powerful with similar effort, through different means. While a LG organization may thrive on exploration and discovery, a CE organization will thrive on banditry and raiding, each advancing at a similar rate.

A game of cops and robbers is no good if everyone wants to be cops, or even if 70% of people want to be cops, because the robbers won't have fun and will just give up because they are constantly getting teamed up on.

Does GW have any plans to do what RSI is doing, and keep funding open?

There are still a lot of EE slots to fill, and a lot of possible things to 'sell'

I would suggest allowing people to purchase addons, or individual 'daily deal' rewards. Bottom line, the new cost must be higher than the kickstart cost to not diminish our reward.

One thing I can think of is opening up the remaining 8 months of reserved EE slots, and tier the pricing 100 for month 2, 95 for month 3, 90 for month 4, and so on. People can pick the slot that matches their financial ability.

There can be 'cash out' points, to continue the 'milestones'. I would suggest not sending out the mineatures and the emerald spire book until EE starts so those can still be included in milestones.

I think the assassination contract should be a purely evil shift, no reputation loss, or chaotic shift.

Issuing an Assassination gives a small evil sift.
If the contract creator is more 'good' than the target, the evil shift for the assassin is lower when they make the kill.
If the contract creator is more 'evil' than the target, the evil shift for the assassin is greater when they make the kill.

There should be an assassin reputation system that you tie to an alias. for instance: Tony the "Bread" Maker. You increase reputation by completing contracts, and you lose reputation by dropping/failing them.

That being said, I think an assassination contract should only be able to be created by a settlement at war, and only target a settlement they are at war with. This would be a way to bring in outside help other than unreliable bandit mercenaries.

There would be a few skills tied to Assassin Contracts:
For Making Contracts:
(Settlement)Contract Creation: Assassin
-Allows the creation of assassination contracts.
-You can have one open contract for each level of this skill
(Settlement)Information Control
-Limits the amount of information 'commoners' pick up on
-never makes the information completely secret
Obtaining Contracts:
Contract Discovery: Assassination
-Enables the procurement of assassination contracts
-You can have one open contract for each level
Assassination
-Increases the penalty associated with you assassinations
-Allows the creation of an assassin alias to mark your kills.
Advanced Assassination Techniques
-Further increases the penalty, requires settlement building Assassin's Guild Hall which is only available to evil settlements, the more evil the settlement, the higher this skill can be trained
Assassination: Anonymity
-Increases your ability to keep your assassination alias secret when accepting a contract, if you are requested by name this skill has no effect, increased by assassin reputation.
Learning About Open Assassination Contracts:
(Settlement)Information Gathering
-Increases the amount of information about other settlements you receive from 'commoners
(Settlement)Threat Reporting
-Increases ability to learn of assassination contracts against settlement.
-Increases town upkeep(simulate reward payments to 'commoners'), upkeep is lower the more lawful the town is.

'Commoners'
Part of this suggestion involves commoners, commoners should be less inclined to move between towns of larger alignment/reputation differences. The larger the difference between the law/chaos and reputation of the settlement, the less information is found. This doesn't mean that a fully lawful high rep settlement will never hear about assassination contracts against them from fully chaotic low rep settlements. The random factor will make sure that if both sides are stacking all the bonuses, there will be a small chance information gets through.

Making the contract
When a contract is issued a series of checks are made by the server. Every game-day a new check is made. There is a random part to this check, but enough bonuses stacking in favor could eliminate the random chance if the opposing side doesn't have just as many bonuses.

The checks involve:
1. (Settlement)Information Control and difference in settlement alignment/reputation against (Settlement)Threat Reporting and (Settlement)Information Gathering(weaker influence) plus a random bonus, to see if you have contracts against your settlement.
2. (Settlement)Information Control and difference in settlement alignment/reputation against (Settlement)Threat Reporting and (Settlement)Information Gathering(weaker influence) plus a smaller random bonus, to see who the contract targets.
3. Assassination:Anonymity, (Settlement)Information Control and difference in settlement alignment/reputation against (Settlement)Thread Reporting and (Settlement)Information Gathering(weaker influence) plus a random bonus, to see who accepted the contract.

If the check is successful the settlement will receive a notification, and there will be a personal notification sent to the target if that check is successful. 2 & 3 require 1 to succeed.

4. Information Control + alignment/reputation difference vs. Information Gathering + bonus, to see what information was discovered by your, made after each above check(1-3). The assassin won't be notified, they must be contacted by the settlement they are working for.

5. A they know you know they know you know check.(maybe)

Assassination Death Penalty:
-All threads are broken.

I feel this would be fair, because it is only available at war, and I feel it is reasonable to make players play more conservatively, especially the high priority targets.

Assassinations cannot be re-issued more than once a week this prevents repeatedly making contracts for the perfect knowledge checks.

Removing a contract
Only the assassin can void a contract once it is accepted. A cancellation fee is part of the contract. In order to collect a cancellation fee, the assassin must receive a cancellation request from the contract creator.
The contract creator can also request a collateral payment.
An assassin can drop the contract and pay the collateral at any time, they will lose assassin reputation.
This gives the assassin a chance to be bribed into dropping the contract by the target, they will likely have to cover more than the collateral and assassination reward, and/or give them something worthwhile to offset the money and rep loss.

I haven't been to a MMO news site for a while, I gave up faith on the MMO development industry after SW:TOR tanked, but I was bored and I decided to see what MMORPG and Massively had to say about PFO, and I was very disappointed.

Both website's articles about the 2nd kickstarter added some needless negativity to the normal negativity in the discussion. Neither website mentioned that the project was fully funded, and that this kickstarter was boosting development speed. They both made it seem like this kickstarter was to fund the game. Massively doesn't even have PFO on their game list.

I think it may be worth it to open up channels with the MMO news sites, and start feeding them some first hand information, and give them the important key words they seem to leave out that really hurt the game.

Right now, I think the biggest thing that is hurting PFO is the lack of correct information, and I was seeing some people that listed reasons for not backing the project that were completely based on false information, and other people judging the game based on that false information. This project probably could have broke 400k by now if people knew the whole truth about what is going on.

I started playing EVE, and there were a few ideas I had about the skill system in PFO based off of annoyances in EVE.

1. Give players vacation time, maybe 5 days every month of their subscription. This vacation time extends the length of time you can plan skill training. A player should be able to have skill training running 24/7.

2. If you do an 'inject' system like EvE. Allow us to 'inject' skills that we don't have the pre-req's for, if those pre-req's are before it in the training queue. If the training queue is altered in a way that would void this relationship, the skill is 'un-injected'.

So if 'Advanced Bow Making" requires "Bow Making V" to 'activate', I should be able to put "Advanced Bow Making 1" after "Bow Making V" in my training queue.

Ever since the Kickstarter there has been a flow of people who either don't have the time, or don't want to read through the blog. I've been meaning to do this for a while, and as the Blog has grown considerably, I thought I would pull the links to most of the blogs that discuss key design aspects of the game, as they are referenced constantly here, and it is a pain to go through the entire blog to find a single reference.(some organization over on the blog side would be nice, like post tags, and categories... and not everything in one stream of text.)

Here's the list:

Game Overview
Setting
Character Development
Death Consequences, Anti-Grief mechanics(Bounty & Marshal Systems)
PvE Content
Companies, Settlements and Kingdoms
Player Created Structures
Fast Travel and Time Distortion
Money, Banking, and RMT
Economy and Material Aquisiton
Dungeon System
Contract System
Settlement/Kingdom Organization
Large Scale Combat Mechanics
Naming Policy/Social Expectations
Ability Bars and Limitations

There was some discussion in another thread about the death penalty(in game) and I threw a small suggestion in the pot, and I thought I would expand on it here.

The idea is to give every character an 'Equipment Loadout', similar to what you see in most MMO's were you have a slot for different kinds of inventory. These would be for items you can easily switch between, and the only things you can use while in combat(without suffering a huge defensive penalty). You could swap items from your inventory, but the idea is you set your loadout in-town, and you never need to change it until you get back. That being said loadout switching should require a town building, or moderate level camp setup. These loadouts also represent the things you keep with you when you die. Personally I don't think "your armor and what is in your hand" is enough, and it is to vague. I want to see each archetype play differently, and I think having different equipment setups is a step in the right direction.

Everyone would get the basic loadout, with armor, jewelry and hand slots, and as you gain badges you get different loadouts. The end result being loadouts that are more aligned with their class, like a ranger that can switch easily between their bow and sword while in combat.

One of the great things about SWG was the ability to teach other players skills you already know. I would like to see a similar system in all skill based advancement games.

What I propose is this:
- Teaching speeds up training for another player.
- Along with a skill queue, players can form 'teaching schedules'
- As with skill training, you can only teach one skill at a time.
- To teach a player, you form a contract that says that your teaching schedule will be dedicated to them for the duration of their skill training.
- Teaching can be scheduled ahead of time, and automatically activates unless the contract is cancelled (Termination penalties are up to the contract). I feel that the system should be very flexible, and not interfere too much with skill training, all you should have to do is find someone with an open schedule when you are set to train that skill.
-The teaching bonus is based on the difference between the attributes, the teaching magnitude is as follows:

Magnitude = Teacher's Attribute - Student's Attribute

The more positive the number, the more the benefit, so if you are at 2 strength and being taught by someone with 20(making the mag=18) you receive a huge bonus, but if you are a 20str being trained by a 2str, you receive next to no bonus.

Teaching could even be linked to merit badges that increase the teaching magnitude to offset negative effects, and increase the higher bonus', and maybe a 20th that allows you to teach 2 at once(not a capstone).

Final note: If PFO will be representing negative benefits from low attribute scores, I would suggest making the teaching impossible, or just for fun, slow it down(a fun statistic to laugh about at office parties).

I have some of my own ideas, but I'm curious how GW sees larger guilds transitioning into the game. That is, how will a 100 person group transition into GW from day 1?

The main problem I see is that there is no large number organization, everyone is going to be in chartered companies(CC's) for a while when the game launches. From Ryans postings, CC's will be member exclusive (1/character) and not designed for large groups.

Will CC's be non-exclusive, meaning that a player can be in as many CC's as they want?

Will CC's have a member cap?

Will settlements have a population cap?

Will we have access to IRC-like tools to create our own *secure* chat channels in game?

I would like to see a system in the game, where one person can own 'something', but contract that administration of said 'something' to another party.

For instance I could build a settlement with 6 other people, and then we could give control of the settlement to 'person A'. Person A can do anything they want within the limits of the contract, but we can remove them from their position at any time.

I would like to see this implemented in a way that would allow a two voting structures in a single administration, where one has the ability to dissolve the other, and both can make changes without the approval of the other.

My main reason for wanting this is so a group of players can have a single player that runs their settlement, adjusting taxes and granting access within limits we define for them.

Diminishing Returns are my two least favorite words when put together. One thing that is killing diablo for me is that getting from 65% damage reduction to 70% requires the same amount of armor points.

I don't want to see another game where you start with 100 hit points and end up with 100,000 in the later stages of the game.

I want to see evasion, blocking, and armor strength to play a large role in combat.

Someone in beefy plate mail will not be damaged by small weapons and arrows. As and example: A chest piece has a denting resistance of 106 and breaking resistance of 150, you need to provide 106 psi to dent(damage) and 150 to break(remove benefit). You either need to have super high strength with a dainty weapon, or moderate strength(so you can hold it) with a heavy weapon. If you aren't using brute force, you need high dexterity to find weak spots, or remove the armor(reminds me of Zelda: Windwaker mini-bosses that where impervious from the front, you had to dash around behind them and cut the bands holding its armor on). Wielding heavy armor would also come with it's downsides, you would be very slow, and have to carry a heavy weapon to do damage.

The end result I want to see is a fight really coming down to 2-5 good blows that hit the character. Swinging a heavy weapon at a fast target may take them down in 2 hits, but those will be 2 very lucky hits. A fast character may make 20 attacks, 15 removing armor, and 5 finishing the job.

I'm a firm believer that PvP in PFO should be fully open, and also rarely used. It should always be there, but the worry should be less than your usual open PvP game. When you are open to non-criminal attack, it should be obvious and avoidable. I want a system where the cost of attacking is higher than the cost of being attacked. It should also be possible for someone to never experience these costs, but it should by no means be difficult, it should be next to impossible.

One thing that games have not simulated is fines and jail time. If you are killed by a player with your bounty you are considered 'caught' and the following will happen:

The statute of limitations for most crimes is 1 year real time, since the last criminal act. That means you must go one year without committing a criminal act or getting caught and all criminal flags will be removed. There will be certain things, such as murder that will never be removed until you pay the price for your crime.

The price of the crime should be equal to twice(ratio can be changed) the net loss of the damaged party. This fine is taken as a tax on all of your transactions if you are unable to pay in full. the moment you are caught all of your assets are drained until the fine is paid, if you don't have enough, you experience jail time. The percentage of money that each damaged party gets is proportional to the amount they are entitled to compared to the total fine, so the person getting the most total, gets the most out of each payment and everyone is paid off at the same time.

Jail time will be simulated by a cap to the size of your net monetary assets, and if you go above that cap all monetary input will be taxed 100% towards paying your fine. You only receive jail time if you cannot pay the fine outright. For the moment lets say this cap is 1000 gold. If your account goes inactive (no skills are trained for more than a week or you don't log in for a month), all of your characters inventories on your account will start to lose things until the fines are paid starting with the criminal characte. This includes losing structures you own, and all inventory items/equipment/gold, starting with gold, moving to items/equipment, and ending with structures. The worth of each item is lower than the selling price, and comparable to selling something to an npc instead of an auction house in your run-of-the-mill MMO.

So if you rob 1000 gold from two stores, and kill a person destroying 3000 gold worth of held items. You now have 8000 gold in your bag. A few things could happen:
1. You go 1 year without committing another crime, the two robberies are removed from your record. You are still flagged because of the murder. Somehow you manage to never get caught.
2.You go 1 year without committing another crime, the two robberies are removed from your record. You are still flagged because of the murder. A bounty hunter finds you, you are 'caught' you now owe 6000 gold to the person you killed. The 6000 gold is removed from your inventor/bank/wherever it is, and transferred to the person you killed.
3. You are caught by a bounty hunter. You owe the murdered player 6000 gold, and each shop owner 2000 gold (total= 10,000 gold) but you only have 8000 gold. You lose all current money and have a cap of 1000 gold for your wallet. Until that additional 2000 gold is paid, you are taxed 50% on all sums of money that enter your possession until all damaged parties get their payment. If you get more than 1000 gold, all income is diverted to pay off the damaged parties.

Thoughts, criticisms, other ideas?

One thing EA and Bioware did right was the guild launch program. I would love to see the GW website, whenever the game discussion officially moves there, have a similar system.

Each charter should be able to register and fill in details about their group. Each group would get a public and private forum along with pre-launch tools for setting permissions and ranking in the group that will translate into the game when the player joins the game.

This is not only a benefit for the players, but also GW, as they will have a good representation of what the interested population looks like, and an easy way to pick who they are letting in.

The problem with the SW:TOR guild launch was that is was over multiple servers and this caused issues, being a centralized game, those problems won't pop up.

One improvement would be to allow players to create their characters before they get into the game, and potentially use them like aliases in these forums. Of course, none of the character creation should be set in stone, and only consist of vague details, a player should have the chance to change everything about their character the first time they log that character into the game.

The more fun stuff we can do that involves the game before it launch, increases anticipation of the game.

I know I bash on SWTOR alot here, but there is another pitfall I want to bring to attention:

Charter and Settlement/Kingdom Functionality AT LAUNCH

There are a lot of good systems, and a lot of bad systems. There needs to be a tremendous amount of options in customizing who can do what without getting chased down by NPC marshals. At the same time, it needs to be easy to set up and get off the ground.

For me, these suggestions would be mechanics for any object/entity that more than one player can have access to. From a small box on a shelf, to a kingdom.

Post what you want to see AND what you do not want to see.

My wants:
-Automatic Taxing of any transaction inside of your territory(building to kingdom level)
-An ownership option that gives all owners equal 'power' and no ability to do anything flagged as 'high risk' with out the consent of a pre-determined portion of the other owners. If my charter wants to have multiple leaders, we should be able to have multiple leaders of equal power, not one that we have to trust not to do anything wrong.
-The ability to see every detail of every action involving the entity. From who opened my leather pouch on the shelf, to who took 3 coins out of the kingdom vault two years and 3 days ago at 5pm EST. Basically access to all non-sensitive data you collect that involves the entity.

Watching SW:TOR's happenings has tremendous entertainment value. Not even 6 months old and the economy has been irreparably damaged by a number of exploits, and the community sees nothing but shallow promises.

Exploits can ruin games fast, in the most resent exploit over at SWTOR players where able to unlock all of the new 'legacy' items and buying up all the high value items on the 'auction house'.

First:

Don't just throw exploitation rules into the TOS, make it a separate easy to find entity.

Second:

Be transparent, tell us what you are doing for punishment, and maybe post a wall of shame. Simply saying "we are taking action" means nothing to me. "We banned 10,000 accounts for life, and reverted all purchases by those accounts on the global-trade-network" would be comforting to a community.

Third:

Don't 'pull a SWTOR*' and not have descent monitoring software until 4 months after launch. You should be able to bring up any player's information and see everything they have been doing since their account was created, and a system that automatically and pops up red flags when a player has suspicious number trends.

Fourth:

Reward the finding of any exploits. Encourage people to report findings with non-power granting items, like game-time, or a unique design pattern.

Every report should be being read, and it should be easy to set up a system where the reader can flag the item for a known exploit.

New reports would only be valid if they bring new data to light, or it has been a few days since the initial report.

Fifth:

SHUT DOWN THE SERVERS

If something big is found, don't be afraid to shut things down. It will be worth it in the end, letting things play out and/or rolling back only hurts people, and there will be tons of people that see a positive income, but for no exploitative reason(exploiter buying their goods). All offline time MUST be refunded. An alternative is making it well known that there will be a rollback of X, Y, and Z, to mm/dd/yyyy HH:MM:SS so people can still do other things, but stay away of those activities.

Sixth:

NEVER make it seem like the community is to blame, own up to your actions, admit you made a mistake and APOLOGIZE to the community.

Seventh:

NEVER release a patch that has a known bug. NEVER give us a release date. NEVER 'pull an SOE**' elude to something like 'new content every month'(DCUO) that you can't possibly own up to.

*Definition:
'Pull a SWTOR' -
- The act of being short-sighted and arrogant in your action, resulting in negative fallout.

**Definition:
'Pull a SOE' -
1 - Excessively using indefinite answers
2 - Taking an action that caused player in-game protests that crashed your server(IE. Combat Upgrade)

By that I mean:

Please don't blatantly waste our time for no good reason.

time = money

If you are going to make me run around a city talking to NPC's for 10 minutes, the end reward should be more than a coin, it should be closer to running out and slaying beasts for 5 minutes.

A horse can gallop at 25-30 miles per hour, reflect this in the game. Don't take something like a speeder-bike and turn it into a scooter-bike.

Transitioning from 'Settlement A' to 'Settlement Q' should not require loading 5 zones that we will never set foot in and sitting through 4 load screens.

Are there any plans for some web-based or smart-phone applications for micromanaging your character/charter? For things like skill training, or money transfers.

Especially with the charter, it would be nice if you could transfer funds, or get on chat channels while not on your gaming rig.

One thing I love is realism in games, and one thing that kills realism in games is a 'T' rating.

The mega-majority of MMO gamers are people that are over 17, and/or they are kids with parents that don't care.

I would like to see the game shoot for an 'M' rating, simply so GW never has to hold back. The only thing they couldn't do is portray hardcore sexual behavior, which isn't something really needed in an mmo. I would like to see the game made in the style of R-rated middle-ages movies.

The game is already rated 'A' simply because there is in-game chat, and unless GW pulls an SOE and starts forced-censoring phrases like: "Anyone want to run the missions on Amu******t Island?" this isn't going to change. You can never make chat tame enough for right-wing christian family ideals, there are always loops around it, it's the internet.

the word is "amusement"

This seems to pop up in other threads, so I'm starting this one:

How should structure attacks be handled?

My thoughts:

Hideout:
Finding a hideout:
- It should require a huge amount of time spent to train the ability find hideouts, and the time required to upgrade the hideouts concealment should be short in comparison. The two should meet around the time you hit 18 merit badges, and it should still require a good deal of time to find a hideout and it should force you to be open to attack from the occupants.

Destroying a hideout:
- Set on Fire, 16 hours of burning until complete loss, until which time players can come try and put out the fire to save their stuff.

Stealing a hideout:
-If you have another skill trained up high enough, you can move the entrance to the hideout and take it for you self, this takes 1 hour of game time.

Inn:
There should be a few NPC guards guarding the inn that are on a 30 minute respawn timer. They are killable, and their 'level' is dependent on how much the inn has upgraded this aspect.

Destroying the Inn:
Set on fire, 20 hour burn. Interior stored items destroyed at an exponential rate, resulting in 10% loss after 10 hours and 90% loss after 18 hours.

Claiming the Inn:
I the attacking party doesn't destroy the building, they can take control. When the guards 're-spawn' a timer is set, you have 10 minutes to kill the guards, upon which time you get one 'capture point' once you have 20 capture points you get control of the building.

Now Fort's Watchtowers, and Settlements fall under the same method of attacking

You must declare an attack. This involves making a challenge every 10 hours for two weeks. If a challenge is accepted, you fight for control, after two weeks, if no challenge is answered you get to attack the structure for the next 72 hours at and either destroy it or take control. After 72 hours the cycle starts again.

The required challenge time window could change, with a 5 day for forts, to 3 weeks for a settlement. Breaching the initial defenses to get in still requires siege if it is described as such in the blog.

One thing I would like to see in in the 'themepark' side of the game is instanced PvP matches that can be accessed from anywhere.

Lore: You get the item: 'Stone of Summoning' that transports you to a instanced pvp match, then back to your location.

One saving grace for new games is instanced PvP, it can be accessed by anyone from anywhere and provides rewards. If you ever get bored with what you are doing, you can run a few PvP matches to refresh your enthusiasm for gathering fairy dust in the forest.

If you do decide to put in scenario PvP, what I don't want to see is the continuation of the deathmatch style of PvP missions every MMO has produced. Global Agenda was close, but it turned into a glorified scenario queue lobby. I think TF2 was closer, but i have no experience in that game. The game I do have experience in is: Return To Castle Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory, which was nothing but the same 8 maps cycling through 99% of the time. And that game held my attention for 4 years as the game I played 90% of the time(then i got into MMO's), no FPS since then has held my attention for any extended period of time.

This style of PvP scenarios doesn't involve a static map, the map is dynamic and there are ways you interact with it, other than standing next to a control node, or picking up a 'flag'.

There should always be a mission behind the scenario, you should work your way through a map, and not all parts of the map are accessible at all times.

If you guys decide to put in a pvp scenario system, or any form of instanced pvp, download RTCW:ET, it's free, and play around with it for a week or so during your down time in the office.

If you do what SW:TOR did, I will quit and never look back.

Water != ankle deep no matter where you are.

Water == 3 axis movement and a breath bar.

The one thing I liked about rift, apart from my past games, was the ability to swim under water, and there were quests that involved swimming under water.

I want to be able to make my hideout in the middle of the deepest section of the West Sellen River.

One thing that really made me giggle quietly to my self was when I was told that I would be making an 'Amphibious Assault' on my Trooper in SWTOR. I guess in a galaxy far far away things are blown way out of perspective on a regular basis.

The one condition I will accept ankle deep water, is if I am actively being compensated for the unfinished game I am paying to play and there is a promise of opening up the water to 3 dimensions less than a year from the day I am given access to the game, with a maximum of 2 years from launch.

If you are really adventurous you will introduce currents and whirlpools. And when i say currents i am talking about the all the different possible currents in the river, not 'the river is flowing south, so you move south'. I want: 'the river is flowing south, so you move south, until you get to this hole that sucks you left and down with no hope of escape then you drown and I get all your stuff, because you just found the door to my hideout without the skill required to access it.'

It should take a boat to cross a river safely.

There are a lot of ideas being thrown around here, and there is one point of clarification that would start allowing us to focus and refine our suggestions and thoughts:

How much influence will the Pathfinder IP have on the game, outside of a overflowing box of shiny lore and some ability names?

To be more specific, will things like the tabletop dice and spell-use mechanics or spell effects appear in the game at any capacity? Or will PFO be creating a brand new set of mechanics and abilities.

The only nudge we get in any direction is in the third blog post, where a general feel of incompatibility is given when discussing "Bringing Pathfinder to the Virtual World" and when talking about attributes no longer being tied to 'throws' but 'resistances' instead.

This board is split between discussions on new mechanics, and mechanics derived from the rule-books. I would like a definitive quote that cancels out one or the other. Even if it's to a small extent, like a list of mechanics we won't be seeing cross-over. The game is already getting over-hyped and expectations are being set pretty high for the level of freedom in the sandbox and how much it will resemble their beloved tabletop game. It would be nice to shoot down some of these discussions so they don't grow out of proportion and cause too much disappointment if or when they do get shot down.

The more you let us come up with ideas, the more in-depth they get, and the more attached we get to them. I had some strong feelings that BioWare wasn't going to come along and make another generic MMO, but they did, and now the game isn't as enjoyable, because my expectations where so high to begin with. Kill the speculation now before it gets out of control.

Handling a siege should be no small event.

Sorry if i jump around a lot, but its hard to keep everything straight when editing and changing things while new ideas are popping up. There is a handful of background explanation required to understand the siege. Some of this goes hand in hand with my other post about Underground Structures

When players found a new settlement one of the things included in the initial charter is the funding for a basic militia.

**It is assumed that a settlement will be initially walled in.

In it's basic state the militia is able to fend off the low level NPC's in the location.

The militia is not infinite and does have to replenish. There is a small regeneration, but this is only to account for losses from NPC attacks. They don't magically appear(unless they are magically summoned entities), the ruling group must transport them in when the numbers are getting thinned.

Now the militia can be upgraded in two ways.

1. Assault defense
Wards off attacks by players, attacks hostile players inside the territory, with increasing severity and rate the closer you get to the settlement.

2. Anti-Siege
Wards off attacks from siege units.

The average defense time should be around 10 hours, and each upgrade would increase this by 1-2 hours.

With players around this time is increased because they can delegate npc's to repair and replenish.

It is also a good idea to create tunnels to get in and out of the settlement, this will come handy when you are blockaded in. 1-way doors should be possible, so attackers can stop players from using the tunnels if they are found but not use them to get in. Conversely the siegers can probe the ground for tunnels and tunnel into them/collapse them. A tunnel could be connected to another settlement(extensive work/time required) and this would allow the two settlements(or however many are networked) to share militia, these tunnels would need to be probed for and collapsed.

The purpose of the proposed mechanic is to ensure that night time zerg rushes(main tactic used in Warhammer:Online) will be unsuccessful(to an extent), and provide a buffer for players to find a way into the settlement once a siege starts.

The Siege:

Stage 1: Collect undergarments

Stage 2:

Stage 3: Profit!

...but really:

Stage 1: Declare Intentions:

-Surrender Terms
-Actions towards non-participating parties(players who just rent space)
----Ransack - strip every building, non participating parties may want to pack up and leave for the time being.
----Delegate - Allow to stay, and take control of rental agreement. Still a good idea to move your valuable goods to a new location for a while.
**participating parties will have markings on their property, and all public buildings are property of the ruling party.

Stage 2: Blockade the settlement and try to cover any secret tunnels. (prevent reinforcements)

Stage 3: Eliminate/Nullify the NPC militia and siege defenses.

Stage 4: Break down the door (or any wall, the door is the weak point and quickest)

Stage 5: Capture the soulbinding point to prevent an endless flow of player defenders.

Stage 6: Seize every community building(excluding player housing, capturing houses is possible, but accomplishes nothing towards capture)

Stage 7: You now control the settlement, or what is left of it.

All stages could be completed at the same time, there is no 'unlocking' the next stage, but it should be very difficult to skip a stage. If you feel like bringing your catapults close enough to hit inside the city, go ahead, but you will lose them fast.

-OR-

Spend 3 years working towards gaining the debt of a dragon with 30 people(not easy work, 3 years spent doing equivalent work to the 20th merit badge of a archetype), have it attack the settlement and burn it to the ground.

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Intelligently set-up settlements will require a good deal of espionage or searching in order to capture. If a single tunnel is left open there could be a constant flow of NPC reinforcements and supplies, and it becomes a battle of gold drain.

If the siege is lasting long enough, it should be possible to make a tunneling assault/defense(tunnel under enemies and plant explosives). So a tunnel/pit ring around the city would be a good defense, and could be patrolled.

Thoughts? Improvements? Additions?

I would really like to have the ability to create extensive underground structures.

Think:

-Wildfire Facility from Andromeda Strain
-Umbrella Corp. Raccoon City Facility from the first Resident Evil Movie
-A little shed in the middle of a dirt plain that has an ENTIRE CITY below it. Say the magic phrase, and the shed starts moving UP!.. NO! it's you... moving DOWN!

Now. fill in the technology gaps with magic and innovative wood/metalworking.

I would love to be able to develop a small little settlement way out from the bulk of the population, and keep it small, but build a huge underground structure. Then some hostile army comes along trying to take our territory, and BAM! 1000 soldiers flood out of a small building in the center of town.

It adds a whole other element to seizing a settlement, there is always the possibility that what you see isn't what is actually there, you would need to send in spies, or hope.