Valthalion's page

well there are times when i would love to take a break from work and read a bit of developer news...however, that doesnt work in a crowded office environment.

i was wondering how long it would take for before a%@!~+~ would response as you did...

is there a written version of the blog? a transcript? i much preferred your previous dev blogs where it was actually written down..

i managed mine a long time ago, but figured i would double check.

There are 5 "steps", across the top, and steps 2 and 4, the addons and address sections show red, indicating their must be something i have not completed.

However, the addons i have selected balance to my total pledge, but there is nothing that seems to affect the overall status of that section.

My address shows up correctly but then says my status is "no address chosen". i cannot seem to affect this section either.

It all looks good, but i am confused why some numbers are red and implying i have something left to complete.

Thank you all. I have been requested to share my recruitment experience here and have struggled a bit on how best to accomplish. I have decided that a bit of history with respect to previous guilds for I have been associated will best illustrate why i chose to apply to Pax and what i got of the trial period.

Online gaming began for me a couple months after everquest released with a bunch of RL friends forming the guild Alliance of the Griffin. This name had represented our group for some years previous so was the logical choice. Initially the guild was effective and fun, but over time additional people were added and in the end, like so many guilds hence, it devolved into drama / decrees and an overall mess. Some left. Some ignored it. Some railed futilely against the injustice of it all.

Looking back, I see now that most of the issues were introduced by recent additions; friends of friends, group acquaintances and etc, and had they guild not wanted to expand (big is better you know.../sigh) and been more careful with whom they invited in, things may have gone far differently.

From that point on, i was very careful about guilds I joined, aiming for smaller guilds with an age range skewed to the higher end. I find older people are more tired of drama / conflict and more apt to discuss issues instead of ranting. I also kept some characters in game unguilded so that if the guild hit a rough patch or imploded I could log on anonymously and avoid the tension.

Reading that last paragraph, i see how it could be interpreted as selfish in some ways, avoiding an issue rather than facing it and trying to help. And I have no good argument against that claim. However, I dont logon to lotro, eve, eq, eq2, wow, and other over they years to experience the same level of frustration and angst that i can get for free at work...where at least my anxiety attacks are compensated twice a month via direct deposit.

And that is why I am so hopeful that Pax Aeternum, well Pax in general, will be a very different experience.

The PFO Kickstarter had lightened my pocketbook and I was following it daily, reading dev blogs and getting really excited about the level of user impact on the world. I also realized that the open PvP, even with some kind of EVE style police to enforce security in some areas, personal safety is achieved only if you are part of a force with sufficient numbers to deter the enemy.

So, i began to look into the chartered companies with an eye toward one that would focus on crafting. The first i happened to encounter was something about Bread Baking...i forget the details, but while humorously written, and not doubt populated by some nice people, it lacked the gravitas for long term viability. Of the largest CCs in the land rush, there were some stark differences in structure and philosophy. I did a lot of forum and website reading before I decided Pax was the one.

What drew me was how well organized and how active they were on their website and these forums. The amount of "rules" was kind of offputting at first, but as i read more, I realized they were not there to pigeon hole or restrict play styles, but to provide roles for people to fill, and set expectations on guild and personal behavior. I realized that much like a public corporation, Pax was guarding its brand name and making sure that any individuals accepted into the clan would continue to represent Pax appropriately. This I admired. It seems simple now that I think about it, but I have encountered no other guilds with such focus.

Another factor was longevity. Pax was instantiated in 2001 and has existed continuously since then. With a decade of stability, the odds of it continuing are high.

Transition. Change. Those are hard words for a lot of people and even harder words for organizations. Pax has rules on how to transition leadership roles form one person to another. Anyone who has had a leadership role in a guild knows it takes a large commitment of time and real life events can take that time away. A job change or a birth of a kid and suddenly the hours spent leading an online group are now required for the changing of diapers, cleaning of spit-up, burping of bubbles, wondering why the crying wont stop. The procedure to step down iis documented and provides for an orderly transition of leadership. Hell, I wish most countries operated as efficiently.

So I applied and that lead to a 2 week trial period where you get to know the people involved, get asked any number of interesting and thought provoking questions and learn whether or not you are likely to be a good fit for the Pax community. I wont go in to details, but if new questions didnt show up each day, i was mildly disappointed as I like the off the wall / out of the blue type queries.

One note. I was the first to apply to Pax for a "non existent" game, so part of the normal procedure where you see if in game behavior / play styles mesh was absent. So I guess we are both taking a bit more of a risk than normal, but I am comfortable with my choice and I hope the future shows that Pax chose wisely.

I let the computer spend the night downloading LOTRO and by morning it was done. I figured the odds of my character being on Landroval was pretty small and i really couldnt remember what server i was on when i played years ago.

So i got on Landroval and surprise there was VALTHALIN (someone had stolen me name...so left out the O), a level 31 dwarven ...something...i had to hop right back off so forgot to even check the class. i didnt notice a lot of interface changes so i expect i will have a bit of a learning curve again.

Valthalin is currently cooling his heels in the Prancing Pony in Bree.

and the trials begin....

I chose Pax Aeternum for several reasons. First, i wanted to be part of a larger community so read the forums of the 4 largest chartered companies trying to assess their gaming style and expectations. TEO was a little to segregated, especially splitting the harvesting / from the crafting. TSV seemed pretty similar to Pax but lacked the historical stability / longevity. As I read the forums I got that "gut" feeling this was the best choice, especially since there is going to be a long time before PFO is up and running which i will likely fill with one or more other games.

I hope that the family aspect of Pax becomes something special to me and it grows to be an integral part of my life, a source of fellowship and comradery.

Forum membership complete.

Guild application filled out. Wish i didnt have to wait until 2014...

Hello all....I am pledged at the Pioneer level and have spent the last couple hours reading about the chartered companies.

Several were attractive, but the key difference between Pax and TSV was the community aspect which encompasses other games i have played, such as EVE, Rift, SWTOR and LOTRO. Despite no current mmorpg addiction, I see this as a good opportunity to maybe reacquaint myself with one of these games and actually have some people to play it with.

I have registered at the Pax forums and am awaiting an email to complete said registration.

I have voted for Pax in the Land Rush Leaderboard.

Valthalion

(note...i love the LOTRO name Pax Thalion. I bet we were thinking similarly when we chose our names. However mine was minted in 1978 for a DnD white box adventure. Yes, i am old, but only in body. The mind? it tries to stay young.)

First and foremost, thanks for the effort and for listening to feedback.

Size...i am not real picky about what size the cards are, but they need to be all the same size. A size that allows me to sleeve them or at least store them in a page designed to hold pictures would be fine. If it comes down to a choice between smaller font or larger card, then larger card is preferable.

Double sided. I would prefer not, but its not a deal killer. Double sided limit the sleeving options since the back must be visible.

Images...Given the possibility of copyright issues even with the best of efforts and intentions, I would perfer image free cards. The side effect is that my aging eyes will also find it much easier to read without an image in the background. Alternately, provide an image free set for those of us who need or prefer solid (very light or white) backgrounds.

Font. For the spell text, I would prefer a font like Ariel which is a very plain and esaily read font. Lookt at the fonts for the links and titles on this website. It might be Ariel (perhpas Helvetica?) but its very close.

Level and other key stats. Make the most frequently used information larger and bold. The cards do this pretty well, but the advice to captilize the 3 letter class abbreviation is a good idea.

thanks once again for all your work

Congrats...wonderful news.

A question was previously asked regarding the number of copies available at GenCon.

Will they be sold Thursday until sold out or will 1/4 of them sold each day?

I am just trying to guage whether I need to lead the rush to booth 2312 or if i can take a more liesurely pace and follow in the wake of the younger and more aggresive.

thanks, Jeff

Well I am glad to finally see some concrete albeit high level information of 4E. Here is my take on 4E, point by point in the DDE doc.
1 - defined roles. I think this could be quite good, though, the devil is in the details here. TBD.
2 - Powers etc...this i like. Not enough details to even hazard a guess as to how well it would work, but i think this will add a lot of flavor and variety to combat for all characters.
3 - Attacker rolls against a static defense. I am leery of this one. Static systems have the problem of also being static from an enjoyment standpoint. Yawn...beat a 16. again and again and again. If its static, then how do you work it to your advantage. Maybe I am misunderstanding this point, but i dont care for this.
4 - Actions. Seems a simplified version of what we have now. I suspect it will make decisions easier in that there will be less choices to make. Perhpas this speeds things up, at the cost of variety and creativity.
5 - Healing surge. THis is fine.
6 - Extended rest. Removes downtime. While i can see the need for this in computer / mmorpg games, I dont see this as a necessary change in a table top game where one can simply pass the time away with a couple of encounter rolls, whether or not its over-night or 6 hours. Guess this doesnt include spells?
7 - Attack...use powers, they are better. ok. so does this devalue weapons...guess that depends on how the powers are implemented or what is needed to excersize them.
8 - Action points - Seems to be a silly system. This doesnt seem to arise from anything concrete in the game or story...just a mechanism to award the occasional extra actin.
9 - Movement Diaganol is 1? this is almost enough to kill it for me right here. This means all circles are now scqures and balls will be cubes. "quick! blast em with your firecube!". I will not play in a game where standing in a corner of a square room, means you are equidistnat from all 3 other corners....bleh.
10 - So is this for ALL STs or just for ending ongoing effects? As an end of effect mechanism, i can tolerate this, but if this replaces the STs get better as you get higher level, then i am "agin it".
11 - This might be useful Would have to see how things would play out. I would miss the urgency created by having a spell wear off and tyring to get stuff done while its in effect.
12 - Reach - I think the idea is that you now wont provoke an AoO when you move into engage a creature with reach....as you move from 1 squrea away to adjacent. This is a good thing as it made engaging enemies with reach weapons very dicey.
13 - Combat advantage seems a good generalization of cases such as flanking. Shooting into melee without penalty?

Overall...on a scale of 1 to 10 (10 being most enthusiastic), I am about a 4.

I have read the Pathfinder RPG (PRPG), though not in depth yet. Cast at will level 0s...nice. Powers with schools of divine / magic. well done. good variety there. MU hit dice to 6...good.
Skill changes...no pionts, but fixed number + INT of skills. This will simplify and i REALLY like the level being applied to the skills. THis will inhigit the ability of players to dabble in skills by giving the 1 rank and at least being able to use them, even if not very effectively.
More feats for all chars...very nice. I ahve always wanted more feats and figured there could be groups of feats for casters and etc besides just fighters and all classes would have a set of feats from which to choose.
Combat Maneuvers seems an interesting idea, but willhave to try it to see how it works in the "real world".
Broken condition for items. I like this. Seems simple yet enough of a factor to make it something to consider and plan for. Repairing is about the right difficulty.
New undead rules. Interesting concept, but i dont think i care for it. The positive one is nice for healing, but the damage is low and and amount of time the undead flee is quite small. This seems to be a huge downgrade from previous turning, which was quite powerful (with a good roll) but was limited to a few times a day. Rebuking? why wouldnt i stand in the maiddle of a horde of goblins and rebuke them all to death? ANd if you are goign to rebute, then you need to right waway so that even 1 point of "healing" on them puts them above their total and thus under your command.

Its far too early and info is too sketchy on both (though already I know more about PRPG than i do about 4e) to make a solid judgement, but unless PRPG wants me to count 1 in the diaganol direction, PRPG has a leg up already.

thanks, Jeff