Visionseer's page

To stick and oar in and mix more metaphors than Pillsbury mixes cake..er.. mixes:

I would note that every real-world theme park in the last decade (or more?) is tied to other entertainment content. Hook 'em on Harry Potter, then make a place the kiddies can bludgeon the parents with requests to visit. If I were to try to build a "ride and experience" venue around, say, my cousin, no one would come. Or very few. You can make a lot of money with less-than-perfect entertainment, provided it piggy-backs on a previous phenomenon, like a movie franchise (which was piggy-backed on a book series, etc.).

It seems to me that funding a successful game is like launching something into space. Once it's high enough, it can coast along without constant thrust. But to get it beyond the pull of Earth gravity, you need to either boost it with enormous amounts of thrust, or find a way to achieve constant acceleration without huge booster rockets (like a space elevator).

Now, in that example:
let Booster Rockets = Cash/Time/Personnel
let Space Elevator = Kickstarter/Crowdsourcing

Both methods can get you past the gravity well, but do it on different time scales (fast and huge energy expenditure versus slow but more efficient, economical energy expenditure). Once you are in open space, you get some options, like solar sails (Free-to-play with Subscription options), burst thrusts (like micro-transactions), etc. Those are great for sustaining the voyage, but you'll never get free of the gravity well on those alone.

Okay, I think I've lost my own point... but it was damn relevant!

I'd agree to the sticky... great list!

(And shamelessly stolen for posting (with attribution, of course) on our Company Site.) ;-)

Ah. Not her fault. I have that post in an Officer area of our new site. Since Dark Sasha is an officer, access is transparent for her, but there is no access for anyone not an officer.
Here is the complete text of the post.

This may ramble a bit; I am going to try to lay down some thoughts on what, exactly, our Company ought to be.

First, some requirements. We need to be mindful of some things that will make the Company viable, and playable for us all, and future members:

Open to all Races
Open to all professions
Have a permanent base
Be free to travel as desired
Hold a neutral political stance
Create a framework for crafting
Have a method of support and funding aside from adventuring
Have a reputation that opens doors

I think that the concept of a Trading Company would satisfy all these and more.

We would have a "home base", where the company is headquartered and keeps it's main crafting workshops. We could warehouse raw materials and commodities, such as fur, ore, other valuables. Obviously, a trading company needs agents to travel, to arrange contracts with suppliers, for contracts for sales of finished goods (or bulk materials transported to the end consumer). We would need to be on good terms with governments and settlements. There would be a need for exploration teams, to discover new things to exploit. We would need military types, to protect our outposts and caravans.

All of that begs a "True Neutral" company alignment. PFO has gone on record that settlements of TN could have inhabitants of NG, LN, TN, CN, and NE. With a stretch, the "corner" alignments (LG, CG, LE and CE) could be held by members, but they may need to stay "on the road" more. (The mechanics of Settlements are being hashed out at this point.)

I would propose that we follow this mercantile model, simply for maximum flexibility.

Check out the Community Use Package. There's lots of good stuff there that you can put on your website as long as you abide by the terms.

Excellent resource, Nihimon!

I know that most "skins" at GuildLaunch are user-built. We ought to be able to get a few listed as we do them. GuildLaunch was extremely receptive to supporting PFO.

As for functionality, they are open to developing widgets or special functions (like the character updates they have for other games), but obviously we'll need to wait to see what we would find useful.

I put in a ticket, and just got an email back from GuildLaunch Support.

Anyone with a GuildLaunch site for their PFO Chartered Company now can select PFO as their Game. No more "Other - Unsupported"!

Turns out GL_Slater in GuildLaunch support backed both Kickstarters, as well. ;-)

Political alignment is defined by the poles of a conflict, regardless of the Alignment of those poles. If you choose to support two sides of a conflict equally with healing and supplies, that's politically neutral, but good in alignment. Similarly, ambushing caravans of both sides as the opportunity arises is evil in alignment, but still politically neutral.

Huh. Okay, I *am* confused. What about in the absence of a conflict? Or if there are more than two sides? Say, a disputed territory, and three, or even more, groups are trying to assume control of it?

I'll go back and read more, I'm missing something. (which isn't surprising. I tend to get in ruts with my thinking.)

I think you may be confusing political neutrality with Neutrality, the alignment.

Opportunism at a personal level may help define the individual alignment, but I guess I see it as a function of political "alignment", too.

From a political view, wouldn't "good" be a societal trend to care for all, and not cater to any one individual's benefit? While "evil" might be, at the extreme, a society where all profit goes to one individual (or even group) without regard to the effect on the masses.

Again, in an extreme view, a Politic of Good may find expression as a sort of socialism, where Politic of Evil would be a dictatorship, likely with slave labor and other oppressive features.

I would put forth that there is Individual Alignment, Political Alignment of a society to itself, and Political Alignment to other political entities. I may be one thing in my personal behavior and belief. My community may govern itself under another set of values which I may or may not endorse completely. In relating to other towns, kingdoms, peoples... well, my town may have yet another set of behaviors it uses in those situations. It isn't a given that a society will treat outsiders or other societies the same as they treat members of their own society.

It gets complicated... maybe we need other terms to use in the various roles. It's kind of like that old bug-a-boo "level". The 18th Level mage cast a 7th Level spell at the 8th Level monster on the 6th Level of the dungeon. Ick. Unfortunately, a lot of the words used for different concepts are the same.

**Edit: silly spell checker...**

IMO, the above statement describes the difference between Neutral and True Neutral. Where neutral is apathetic to good/evil, law/chaos, and mainly self absorbed, or at least predominately concerned with its self. True Neutral on the other hand is very involved in the struggle of law/chaos, good/evil. It must be in order to maintain a balance and prevent one extreme from rising above the other.

This is exactly how I see the Northern Lights. We will be opportunists, but also diplomats... for hire. We will trade with anyone who doesn't try to bargain with a sword, and we will be happy to be go-between unbiased facilitators of negotiations or the like.

While some could see the opportunism as a LE or CE trait, I see it as TN. It is in our best interest to have two customers, not one. So, if "helping" a bit to maintain a balance between two opposing factions becomes possible, we will take that road as a matter of policy. Not publicly, of course.

"But of course we have you foremost in our thoughts and hopes for prosperity! You've been such an ally to us, and we are happy to support you in your time of need!" .... copy to all parties, double check the salutation on each to ensure no embarrassment comes of the wrong message reaching the opposite party. ;-)

We have a new, PFO-dedicated, page!

Okay, it's really rudimentary right now, and the membership application is still in development. We do have places for others to post in, however. One for In Character diplomatic posts, one for OOC diplomacy, and one for general posting to the Company for information and such.

Graphics are still being worked on, but we ought to be customizing things in the next week or two.

Take a look, say hello!

Northern Lights Chartered Company

I've been tasked with thinking some first thoughts on our Chartered Company. We are Northern Lights, a name that reflected the real-life geographical location of most of our founding group when we started a Kinship in LOTRO. To make a transition for the CC in PFO, I've been working on the premise that we will be a trading group (company, collective, whatever).

Hopefully we will be able to stake a place in the north as our "trading outpost" to center a settlement around. If not, our initial location will probably be "the regional trade hub for the Northern Lights Trading Company" or something like that.

By going with the trading company model, I can justify different races and classes (or... okay, not classes in PFO... but maybe "professional focuses"?) having membership in the group. It also allows some flexibility in size of physical presence in various areas, a single location, or multiple ones.

As for protection, I'm hoping enough of our members will be militaristic enough to provide defense and guard functions.

Things like lighter-that-air islands, I think they always follow a simple rule in Fantasy:

One is a Wonder, Unique is a goal; Lots and lots become not so special, and spawn things like "Honest Conan's Used Weapons of Godly Power, and Camel Wash".

I'm not adverse to just about anything... provided it isn't available in case lots for a discount.

Oh, and I also invoked a dwarven courtship ritual, known as "the Braiding"... involving weaving together the beards of both as a test of patience and honor. Kind of like the idea of "bundling" betrothed people or sleeping with a sword between. ;-)

((This was written in another context, in a game long ago, but hardly forgotten... ))

The Bearded Lady Song

Me lasses beard is soft as snow,
It warms me face and tickles below,
Her fine whiskers be a gift, don't ye know,
Slung o'er her shoulder an tied in a bow!

A bearded lady is fine!
Her kisses much more sublime,
When her chin is all hairy,
I sing loud and merry,
The Bearded Lady is Mine...

Me sweet lass kin hold her ale,
She drinks it down by the pail,
And when men and elves have fallen
"Another Round!" she'll be callin...

A bearded lady is fine!
Her kisses much more sublime,
When her chin is all hairy,
I sing loud and merry,
The Bearded Lady is Mine...

Me lass wields a great bloody axe,
She relishes each of her smacks,
Best not be makin smooth-faced cracks
Lest ye want ta feel her hairy whacks!

A bearded lady is fine!
Her kisses much more sublime,
When her chin is all hairy,
I sing loud and merry,
The Bearded Lady is Mine...

Name Northern Lights
Alignment TN, probably tending NG
Focus Crafting, Trade, Exploration
Timezone Mostly GMT-5 through GMT-8
Link http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2peh7?Chartered-Company-Northern-Lights

Still very early days for us, we know we have at least seven accounts pledged, hopefully many more by the time things are ready to roll. We will have a GuildLaunch site, but that is under development. Our LOTRO site is up there.

Opt-in/Opt-out might be the way to do this fairly.

If you want to allow thieves to try to take your stuff (or a reward-type of chest for success), you buy traps or guards/dogs/watch-rats and devise your defenses. When you are happy with them, "flip a switch" somehow, to make your little mini-dungeon available to thieves. Turning off the "Thief-able" flag would prevent anyone from doing it ("You case the joint, but realize that the risk/reward would simply not be worth it. You move on to other prospects.").

If a thief finds a property with the "rob-me" flag set, they try their skill at your protections. Failure could mean anything from "you run away while the alarm sounds", to "You awake in the city gaol, with a headache, and in irons. Now what?", to "Your spirit leaves your broken, pierced, poisoned, crushed, semi-devoured body to enjoy the afterlife".

I'm not communicating very well, but my real point is: make it player-select to be included or excluded in the crime wave. If included, the player ought to be given the opportunity to pit (no pun intended) his trap skills and security ideas against the thief. It almost has to be a modular set of things to check against, so it can be done if the vulnerable owner is off-line.

Going a step further... maybe "vacation-mode" toggles would make your property simply a block of stone in the game.

Meadhall (Yeah, I'm kind of northern-culture biased), transportation hubs (Stable, Harbor/Warf, ???), Guildhalls for the crafts, libraries for the researchers,...

Maybe some sort of government building that can be adapted: Palace/Keep for your despots and monarchs and warlords, Council Chambers for oligarchy or democratic/representative governments, Tower with Audience Chamber for your magocracy, could be a basic thing with "attachments" that alter the purpose/look/function.

Must have a Suq or other open market thing, with someplace near to stable the camels/horses/mastodons.

How glorious to have a home on Golarion!

I am, along with Dark Sasha, an officer of the Northern Lights. I don't think it is jumping the gun to say that we embrace Diplomatic relations with any and all.

It is early days, indeed, but I am certain that much of our "charter" will involve exploration, trade, manufacture of goods (crafting) and arrangements made for mutual benefit.

For some of us, this is a Brave New World, and we approach it with wide-eyed wonder and anticipation of wondrous times to come.

Visionseer wrote:

NWN stuff

If, and that's a big if, the potential arises to allow people to create content for Pathfinder Online, it would be something that we'd be able to talk about only once we were sure it could be done. For now, we're focusing on the content we have to build to launch & support the game exclusively, but I'll say that we've certainly had brainstorming sessions about 3rd party or player content creation and how cool it could be.

Thanks for the reply, Ryan!

As you think about it, maybe I'd suggest that, while player/3rd party content would be great... in a common world, where the players en masse can't "vote" for quality by their patronage of that particular server, a solid vetting process would be essential. Take all content you can... but have a veto or even editorial power over it's inclusion. Keeps the quality up, while encouraging submissions to be well thought out and worked before sending in.

Just a thought while on my first cup of coffee this morning.

I am one of those NWNers, who grieves at the botch of NWN2, and the fumble of the entire license. Here are my 2 coppers:

NWN1 was not a stellar game from a mechanics/graphics/engine standpoint. It excelled in that it allowed all those persistent worlds to spring up, with scripting control, massive customization, creature creation, item creation... as far as it went. The toolset was clunky and had a horrifying learning curve to actually produce "good" content.

What killed NWN1 was the unexpected. When persistent worlds became the wonderful places they were (and a few still are), there was no way for the developer/license holder to capture a revenue stream to support further development. Oops. They tried desperately to fix this with the paid-module format, that required a live internet connection to play single-player through some great content, but it neglected the vital point of community created content multi-player. It didn't work well, and wasn't in the spirit of the persistent world multiverse out there.

I still have very good friends who I've met a decade ago on a NWN persistent world. That kind of community isn't easily captured, or recreated from scratch. Will Pathfinder Online do it? I dunno, but I (and a lot of my old NWN friends) sure hope so.

I realize it is far too late in the development of PFO to make drastic changes at such a core level, but I've always thought that if Bioware/WoC/Atari/whoever had just created some sort of tollbooth on the road to the persistent worlds created by community, we'd likely be playing NWN 7 or somesuch today. The need for the developer to make money on the product is not just vital, it is essential to any game. I would gladly have paid, I dunno... say $5 or $10 a month to access my beloved persistent world. I did contribute financially to the hosting costs of my favorite PW. Why not give that money to the game developer, in exchange for the hosting of content that the community, and in specific, MY community created? Tollbooth... and the continued development and hosting costs are taken care of, while the players/GMs/communities get a place that they can play in together, and is accessible to anyone with the game, where they create the world, or at least heavily customize it.

If I hope PFO is in any way like NWN... it's in the community content that fostered such deep and abiding friendships (and at least 2 marriages among my old group).

Forgive me if the following is Simply, Stupidly Obvious (TM):

Since the horrifying botch that was Neverwinter Nights 2, there is a vast number of people out in the ether who are searching for a place to come together in community fashion, and create content as well as role play, story, and lore. Is there a chance that Pathfinder Online will be that?

The thing that made NWN1 what it was, was community. Sure, those communities couldn't exist without the toolset to create the persistent worlds that they inhabited, but the core was the ability to customize, to tweak things to appeal to a like-minded group of players. I am strongly of the opinion that the reason the NWN franchise died hard was because, while the developers built a system that allowed unprecedented customization and user content creation, they failed in two very important areas.

First, they failed to make the process of content creation EASY. We saw some very interesting persistent world concepts die because the scripting was not easy, or the toolset had a steep learning curve. The key to getting great player-created content is to make the process of creating it simple.

Second, in building a wonderful way for creative game masters to create content, they forgot one niggling detail: How to make money at it. The community input was staggering in volume, but didn't capture a nickle for the developer, the license holder, or anyone else. There were companies that made some money, but they were the hosting companies that had server farms that could run someone's persistent world for them, allowing the bandwidth needed for groups to play. Unfortunately, their margins were razor-thin, and as the number of persistent worlds declined as the game aged and players went in search of fresher graphics and content, they began dropping the NWN support until, I think, only one or two were left. But the main point to this is that the developer soon found itself supporting a game that wasn't generating a lot of income.

I know that the MMO model is not one that can be used to replicate the totality of the user content creation modes of NWN... and, frankly, I don't think that level of small-group customization is economically realistic anymore. But Pathfinder Online has the potential to really wildly succeed at a few things we've been craving for a long time. The point in all this blather is really to voice my optimism for this project, and the excitement that is brewing among the people who used to game together on a NWN persistent world that shut down over five years ago. (Yes, most of us stay in contact still.... it was that sort of socially bonding situation.)

First, many (most) of us (based on completely unscientific observation) feel that a system like Pathfinder is so much better than the abomination that is D&D 4e... If I want to play a console video game, my pen-and-paper campaign isn't the place for it, nor is it the rich role-play environment I love. For that reason alone, we are watching this developing story closely.

Second, we have tried a lot of things, and nothing seems to be able to capture the immersion that was possible with NWN1 persistent worlds. I am unsure about the level of content creation/customization that Pathfinder Online will ultimately offer, but I fervently hope that a content creator (or a semi-organized group of them) could really customize areas, be given some sort of control of the things within a "geographic zone", subject (of course) to the ultimate editorial control of Goblin/Paizo. Not that gravity should work differently from one area to another... but governments, perhaps custom magic effects/spells, and creatures should all be on the list of customizable parts. I think it would be perfectly fine for, say, a magic spell to be "discovered" in one area, and (over time) if the development team sees it as popular and fitting, that spell slowly spreads across the game world.

I am realizing that this is becoming far too long a post; I'll leave it here, and take it up later, or simply shut up if that's the feedback. ;-)

Let me simply conclude by saying, a-la Princess Leia's holorecorded image: "Help us, Goblin/Paizo; You're our only hope!"