Void Ronin's page

A day walking (Dayborn), Nosferatu heritage, Sin Eating, Kinslaying Dhampir Inquisitor of Pharasma.

Throw on some Crow's robes, hand him a longbow, and add the Trap Finder campaign trait and he might just be the scariest undead hunter out there.

Yep, I think the server went down. I crashed out just after midnight PST and havent been able to reconnect either.

In the TT most DM's simply over look the bag with "do you have it on you, good... forgotten". If forced it tends to only screw the wizard over everyone else.

If implemented then it needs to be across the board. So long as everyone has to deal with the same mechanic. Divine caster would need to use a degrading object the same as the wizard and fighters weapons would need to degrade at the same rate as the wizard.

I know of at least 2 alpha members plus myself that will have Oculus dev kits prior to alpha starting and would absolute love to test the game with them.

Every guild does not need to own or defend a settlement. Plus given the nature of the contract and alliance system one big guild picking on the little guilds my find that they are now the prey, possibly hunted to extinction. Elite and or powerful groups through out history also tend to be small in number.

I havent seen these answered anywhere and i haven't seen much in the way of Dev statements about gods and mechanics. These questions are mostly due to the current crowdforging poll.

I have to assume that limiting the choice of gods to those 9 (one per alignment) means that having a god must generate some form of extensive mechanical system. I also have to assume that this system is much more than simply what domains a divine caster has access to as having two minor level dependent abilities and a few additional spells added to your casting list seems very trivial when compared to a pet or fast travel system. I also have to assume that it is more than art development time as it would seem easier to give the players the choice of their favorite deity and have them use a place hold item verses not having X god in game at all by EE. (like a Lawful Good holy symbol for all Lawful Good gods, ect)This poll generated a few questions.

What is the system that forces such a limited list?

What happens to a character who is forced to choose one of these gods and the one they really want gets added later?

Will there still be an option/ place to a character as a follower of another god without the mechanical system?

Why these gods, as they do not cover the core major deities (Torag, Sarenrae, ect)?

Will churches/ religious groups act as an alliance choice?

Will most if not all of the major deities be added by Open Enrollment?

Valkenr wrote:

... messing with lots of things and rooting out bugs.

Alpha-pledgers should not be bughunters, but will give feedback on the design (mechanics, ui, encounters). Bascially GW will give you something to play with and then ask "is this fun? is this too simple or too hard? which of these designs is better?"

The reasons to go alpha should not be to become a more powerful player (although that will happen to some degree), but
a) seeing from the inside how a game like this is made (a rare opportunity!), and
b) having a direct influence on the game design - aka tuning PFO to be more like you want it.

From my understanding of what GW is trying to do, the Alpha testers are very much bug hunters. Once the game leaves Alpha it will enter the EE phase (Limited Launch). This phase is Live, as in minimal bugs and no character wipes. That can only happen if the majority of the bugs have already been hashed out by the alpha testers/ Devs. The EE phase is also the phase where the community will assist in creating the systems that the OE folks (full launch) will use. While the Alpha folks will also help in creating those base systems we will be doing the bulk of the actual mechanical testing. Think more foundation building instead of structures and interior decorating.

Alpha backers should expect at least one character wipe before EE (if not many more). They should expect to spend the lions share of their time testing specific builds, bug hunting, mechanics, locations, ect as per the direction of the Devs. they should not expect full time access to the servers, nor full access to even base mechanics at times (class trees, gear, ect) They should also expect not to really be "playing the game".

I find it odd that people would withdraw their pledges because Goblinworks decided on Unity. I follow a lot of the most current engines and I'm just curious. Why did Unity make your guildmates withdraw their pledges?

One is a Unity programmer, he stated that until GW puts out more information on how they plan to use it and fix "scaling" issues, he would not be paying upfront. He talked about some other things as well; net code, UI, lack of other MMO's using the engine, ect. Enough that i can understand where he is coming from if not the exact reasons since i am not a programmer.

The others backed out due again to the lack of any AAA MMO using Unity and no real information from GW. Almost all of the information on the net shows it is primarily a mobile/ browser based engine, at least that is what it is mostly being used for. I know Unity states that it can support MMO's and there are a few MMO like games that use it. But with little information from GW and no other games to use as a reference point (and other major sandbox games using things like CryEngine 3) they saw the engine announcement as a major let down. I know they may try the game out when it goes live and will follow it, but they will not back it without more information. With 5 days left I think it is unlikely that GW will put enough information out to convince them since again there are no screen shots, actual mechanics, or live video of the game.

I understand the folks that do not like PvP. I am one of them. But i am willing to give the game a shot and my money in the hopes that their version of PvP will live up to their intentions. Almost everyone i know that doesn't like PvP, including me, is a result of some very poor design implementations in past MMO's. At some point the worlds of PvP and PvE will meld and become one complex system. I am simply hoping that PFO finds that harmony first. Backing a little to see if the results are what everyone hopes they will be seems to have marginal risk. After the first few free (minus the buy-in) months i will know if it is the game i hoped for or not. When you add in the PFRPG goodies the buy-in more than pays for itself. Reducing the risk to really zero, unless you count time spent playing and there really is no way to minimize that particular investment.

I agree Skeld, as money earned early and wisely invested is always superior to money later, even if also wisely invested. The risk of no money and the stigma of failure though would seem to warrant more caution. At least that is how i see things.

I think that may be the case, though the lack detailed information has cost them a few thousand dollars just within our guild. The day they posted about the Unity engine with no real detail beyond "we're using it" resulted in 3 members dropping their alpha pledges. That might only be a small amount of money when the goal is $1 million, but it is also only a handful of people with my social circle. I have a gut feeling tells me that they are not alone in their reprehension. I am still backing at a high level, however, i would be lying if i said i was comfortable with their choice based on our current level of information.

I think it will be close, and i mean really, last few minutes close.

I said it when this started; "This is just not the right time to be doing a PFO kickstarter."

While those of us that backed the techdemo, live here on the forums, or are somewhat crazy nutz over PFO; we are the minority. I still feel that GW made a big mistake with this KS. I dont feel that it is such a massive mistake that they can not come back from it though. There is a list of reasons we are not doing as well as we had hoped:

1) Holidays, really, what was so urgent that they could not have delayed a few more months and posted their intentions on their website/ here in the forums. This would have let the major fans prepare a little and let new/ old fans breath a little after the holiday overspending.

2) Way to close to the last KS. It is still too fresh in peoples minds and most dont actually read the boards/ blogs. I have heard several times that GW should just take the "first 300k" and back this one to make it a success as if that money was not already mostly spent as part of start-up costs.

3) No actual game images, videos, or mechanics. Lots of people look at the techdemo and think it is actual in-game footage. New potential players and non-hardcore followers need the images to feel better about what they might invest in, especially in the MMO realm.

4) GW's home page is not really set up to inform most new potential players. They would have to swim through the wall of text that is a bi-weekly 1 year+ blog, then spent many more hours here on the forums reading more threads to finally have a good idea of what the game is about. It may sound mean but if you want to target the masses you seem to need the hook to be short, sexy, and to the point as to why they should give you their money (even if its not really true).

5) A rough start with the KS page. The layout of information is kind of rough and the description of the rewards are a little lacking. I know we receive better information here, but not all of the backers nor potential backers come here.

6) The $1 million goal. That is a pretty high target to reach for when a lot of people seem to back KS's for the stretch goals after they have already "been funded". Something about success breading more success.

I would personally would like to see them close this down, wait about 8-10 months, and restart the KS later. This would be after then nailed down the engine (plus all of the side software) and basic game play systems, in addition to redrafting their webpage, adding in-game alpha'ish footage and have solid reward descriptions. Basically presenting a better, more streamlined KS shortly before their alpha would kick-off.

Since GW has decided to use Unity as their base engine I am really leery about donating too much, too early. As of today there are only two full MMOs either using or planning to use Unity as their base. One is a kid friendly console like button masher (FusionFall from Cartoon network) and the other has no real game information out yet (Game of Thrones by HBO).

The vast majority of games using this engine are either mobile or browser games. Each of the Unity programmers i have talked to also do not know exactly how GW will make this work as they will still need to leverage Net code, UI, and art assets outside the base engine. (Mind you, this is information from my programming friends as I have no idea when it comes to programming.) While it is always expected that a company will need to create their art assets in-house and their current 18 man team ( I think this is the number) seemed fine to accomplish this. However, needing their Net code also created requires a lot of work and many more people. This still does not solve the largest stated issue with Unity, the UI. UI's seem to make or break MMO.

I am still backing the KS, but with my current information on the the game engine I cant seem to justify to myself let alone my guildies/ RL buddies to back at higher levels (or back at all in some cases). We only have 6 days left before this becomes moot; good or bad. I still want the KS and PFO in general to succeed but i need some help to remove my own fears of an overly ambitious game failing to meet expectations in addition to a strong argument to present to my RL buddies/ guildies in order to help persuade them to back the game.

Questions:

1) If you are a guild backer will you need to buy an title, player pack, ect for each of the six accounts or does one add-on apply to all the accounts?

2)Does your Destiny's Twin also gain the normal benefits of the account (like Daily Deals, Player pack, ect) and if you bought an add-on does it also apply to the the Twin or only one character?

3) Can you buy some of the add-on's and have then attached to a tech-demo alpha account?

Heh thanks I suck at adding links.

The folks over at Link Dead gaming just posted an interview with Ryan Dancey. Here is the link:

http://www.linkdeadgaming.com/20-questions-with-ryan-dancey-from-goblinwork s-about-pathfinder-online/

Apologies if this was addressed but:

I recall hearing that to keep crafting a big part of the game, item durability and deterioration would be very important. Are these special items going to have limited durability? Will only some of them (the functional ones vs. the cosmetic ones)? Will there be an option to repair the ones that broke?

Given that they are all supposed to be "bling" vs high end gear, I would hope so.

Right, this is about the 2.5 year to cap a single class. Even if there are general skills (common across all classes), and the like, the current estimate is 2.5 years. It is assumed that if you were to spread your self out more, dabble in other things, multiclass (what i plan to do), craft, gather or any of the other things that might be possible in this game it will take more than the 2.5 years to cap that single class. The issue still lies with the perception of wasted training time. In almost every game i have been in that has a skill/ ability system that allows characters to eventually earn them all there is also no ability to retrain. Normally this is due to the perception that you can slowly switch over to the new style. The reason that will not work in this game is the fact that your training time take real world time to complete. No matter how much i replay/ grind i can never catch up to those that effectively got lucky with there role choice/ playing-style.

Say I started the game as a paladin and after trying it out for a few weeks I wanted to switch to Wizard because i dd not like the majority of the style behind the paladin (given the PnP pally mechanics are not PFO pally mechanics). I would image that very little of my paladin skills would transfer or even be usable as a wizard; Heavy armor vs no armor, divine vs arcane, ect.

This game will not have the amount pre-launch lead up time that most games have. The alpha players are very small in numbers and the beta will be live; meaning no wipes. Your first character will most likely suffer mistakes or chose options that having tested them you would not have made. I feel there should be something to address this issue or Alt's may end up being just place holders for "crap I screwed this version up, better start playing Bob #2).

Also I would hate to see the Eve problem come here. Meaning pay for some time, login, que up your chosen skills, log out. Eventually log back in to que up more skills, buy more time, rinse and repeat for about 6 months. Now you can actually play game with your friends without sucking and if you want to try something else you still have a "fall-back".

Either retraining needs to be in from the beginning (Not my preferred option, but should be really slow and possibly a skymetal option) or some way to test several abilities/ builds before actually training needs to be in place (preferred choice, maybe a magic training room to "test": you future potential or paths).

This game will not have the typical beta phase where players can tinker with various classes and ability builds before launch. The vast majority of players will start day one with the character they intend to play for the next 2.5 years from a role-play/ PnP concept. I see an issue if they have been playing for a few weeks but do not like the way the class is shaping up or how it fits with their playing-style. Without these methods they would either have to "re-roll" and lose the training time or switch to a new set of skills effectively wasting the previous training time as a bad decision but not he badges, ect. Both options push the 2.5 year cap out longer. Though I guess for the rich they could simply roll every possible type of character they may want to play and pay to keep them trained as a back-up; seems kind of silly to me.

I also have a question; A friend at work and fellow guildie backed the tech-demo at the alpha level so he only back this kickstarter at the pdf/ print edition levels as he gains all the digital stuff from the previous alpha. Will he need to change his current backer level to something else to count for our guild?

I like that idea Andius.

When the success is funding a project, I would put the monetary contribution above the number of contributors. Also, there isn't a way to definitively verify the 'crowdforger guild' pack members.

If the contest is for number of members, then guilds that aren't big in the community will tell their members 'come give $5 so we can pad our numbers and win'

If the contest is for money raised, then guilds tell their members 'come give $5 or as much as you can so we can win"

I have to agree with Valkner and Keovar. Recruiting active members at the EE $100, and even the OE $35 is worth way more to the community than convincing a bunch of people to throw $5 at a game that they in all likelihood do not really care about. The value of their contribution is also worth more when you are actively trying to hit a target number of dollars and thus make the Kickstarter a success. 20 $5 backers are not equal to 1 $100 backer. Their cash is equivalent but the $100 backer has "skin in the game"; they will help shape the game and has demonstrated that they actually want the game to succeed (not just the neat PDFs/ PFS cert or numbers for a guild competition).

I know there may be a few special situations where someone can not afford to pledge at the $35+ level. I feel for them. specially if they are active members of the community.

I think you guys are missing the obvious here. A character that was created 30 days ago can have 90 days worth of training bought and in the account, but it still takes 30 days to train 30 days of training. So there is no way for a character to advance beyond the time it has been created.

Extra time has to go to alts.

That might not be entirely true as your base stats adjust your training time. If you were to min/max your stats you could in theory train more things in those 30 days than someone that has lower stats in the same abilities.

They are not less then nor kicked to the curb. They are the world shapers. That is the real advantage. I did not mean to sound harsh or elitist. The skill training is only a small part of our characters and it sounds like there will be additional requirements for some of the skills like earning in-game badges. My intention with the "leap of faith" statement was simply that we are not taking a leap of faith. The game will be made and that at the time of the tech-demo it was not fully funded. They even had a section that covered what would happen to our pledge if the game did not get funded. I do agree that without our current backing the game will be diminished.

It is part of the reason why i am heavily working within my guild to get more people into the early enrollment stage. They seem to have an issue fully understanding the "limited entry" part of the planned roll out. They think it will be like every other game and as soon as they want to play they can sign-up/ pay, download then join us in-game. As it stands right now we are closing in on the cap for the first month of EE. Once we hit the 2k pioneers then the 2k+1 person will have to wait 30 days before they can join up.

I am honestly surprised we have not seen more people at the $100 level. I figured people would be dying to get in to the early enrollment. I know I am going to love being one of the first people in to the game wear I can really make my mark on the game.

I have been fielding this issue with my RL friends and my guild-mates. The biggest problem i am having is that they don't seem to understand that the $35-$75 level is the official launch and that it is a year after the $100+ levels are already in the game. The also think that OE is another phase of beta, the EE is the early beta and Alpha is just for the crazy people.

My vote would be for CryEngine 3. Some of the vids for archeage are sweet.

I believe that if the game has been live 60 days but you made your character 30 days later it would only have a total of 30 days of training. I could be wrong though as this is my interpretation of things here on the boards, other interviews, and the way things have been done in the past for other games.

Though the only real leap of faith people were the tech-demo backers. This game will be created and will go live even if this current kickstarter fails. It will just release faster with the success of the current kickstarter. Also, as for those tech-demo backers the only one that are in the game from that kickstarter are the 32 alpha backers. The value of our accounts is the ability to shape the game not the training time bonus. If the Devs decided that we could purchase "missed" training time later it would not decrease the value of our accounts. We are the ones that have been playing for the entire time; earning badges, exp, gear, crafting, warring, building a rep, ect. The newly created characters that spent the money would only be on equal footing in the skill department. They would still have a very long way to go (with very little sleep) if they wanted to catch up.

Mine is long term; I will have to live up to my per-resurrected self. Phlux Soulglitch the First did a lot important things in the River Kingdoms and now Phlux Soulglitch the Returned will have to relearn his abilities, find new allies, and reestablish his legend in the current time.

You will receive one month of total training time per month you are subscribed. You are allowed to use it all on one character or break it up among several characters with the combined total not exceeding the original one month total. You can then buy additional training with Skymetal, the cash shop currency, or from other players selling their training time for coin.

I also believe that you can not have more training time on a single character than the total maximum amount of time the game has been live; ie. 60 total day of training at the 60 day mark from the time your character was created. This is how I have been led to understand the Train time situation will work.

Nihimon wrote:

Void Ronin wrote:

Should be noted that the Open Enrollment is not a beta.

It should also be noted that Early Enrollment is also being referred to as Beta. It's not a typical Beta, but then again, PFO is not a typical MMO :)

it is beta in the sense that we that are in it get to help forge what everyone sees one their first day in on release. other than that its pretty much just early access to the game before anyone else can get in.

At least that is my understanding of it. can't wait to see it :) EE here i come!

That is the Early Enrollment not the Open Enrollment. Again Open Enrollment is the real, official, no longer in development stage, launch of the game. The $35 Adventurer, $50 Music lovers, and $75 Loremaster backer levels get in here. They are not in the Early Enrollment (beta) stage. Radiarch stated that he was in the OE beta, unless the "OE" was a typo then he will not be in beta but launch.

Our backer level will determine which one we all will be in; <$1000 not in alpha (Alpha), <$100 not in beta (Early Enrollment), <$35 not in launch (Open Enrollment).

Hah, no touching the dancers...

sounds like a branch of Tony's

Should be noted that the Open Enrollment is not a beta. It is the full launch of the game. The game will have three phases:

Alpha - Small number of people that include the Devs, Tech-demo alpha backers ($1000 level), Current kickstarter alpha backers ($1000+ crowd), and possible the friend/ family type hand picked by the devs. This phase is the major bug hunting section and will have very few systems in game.

Early Enrollment - This is the beta but not an open beta. The alpha people will be wiped (at least that's the assumption). The Crowdforger Pioneers and above ($100+) from this Kickstarter will begin here in waves of 2000 player or 200 guilds on a first backed first in monthly system. There will not be a character wipe and this is the stage that the systems will be introduced and the foundation of the game will be built. there will also be a monthly subscription (some will have a few free months based on backer level).

Open Enrollment - This is the official launch of the game and the server will be opened up to more player beyond the kickstarter backers($35+) (not sure on the numbers). The subscription model will remain an option and a micro-transaction model (Skymetal) will be added to work with the Free to Play (F2P) format.

It is meant to encourage grouping. Yes there will be those that will find a way to exploit the system, however, it has been stated several times that those who expressly exploit the system will be dealt with out of game ie banning. If you travel alone (solo) outside an NPC community or a well established good/ lawful community with goods you should expect to lose them or at a minimum defend them. There is an elaborate contract system in place that can be used to hire player guards as well as an equally elaborate bounty that can act a deterrent. In addition, gear will have threads that can be attached to prevent looting (higher level gear requires more threads leaving other gear unprotected). Gear will also be designed to be replaced often so that the loss of it is not a major setback, simply a minor setback.

Work with a group or charter company, plan ahead, and have a back-up plan at all times. IF this still doesnt work for you than maybe this is not your kind of game.

The game might end up an RP haven and I would like that to be the case. I just don't expect it to ever be a hardcore RP'er majority. These would most likely be the only players that would never use the mechanical advantage unless it was expressly part of their characters "story". The RP neutral group will most likely be the majority and I expect that they would use the marriage buff to give them an edge or to level the playing field. Groups going to war will want any edge they can get. If this means "marring up" to get a buff it will happen. Heh, I guess the divorce rate would spike after the battle though, maybe I can make a divorce lawyer firm...

I would love to see jump puzzles in PFO and there is certainly themes that fit into the exploration side of the game. Given the skill system of the game I can see that if you have acrobatics or climb and the like it would make the puzzle easier; higher/ longer jumps, faster climbs, flips, ect. Scaling mountains, moving through tree tops, parkour'ing across a city would be awesome. Some player do not like them and at no point should the jump puzzles ever be required, but they should be an option. This is no different than RPing. There are many player who hate it and many who love it, but the option should still exist. (unless the resources to make said puzzle take away from something else that is rated by the Devs then possible the community as more important ie. dungeons)

Prohibitively expensive is a relative term depending on the player. Despite my income level or what I am willing to back on Kickstarter I could never wrap my head around having more than two accounts even for a game that only allowed a single character per server. While at the same time I have friends that typically run 4+ accounts per game they play.

I like the idea that you get one month of training time per account. It will allow you to have a main or one character per account that is at the current skill training time cap. If you want more characters at the cap you will need to effectively buy another account though with this model these extra characters would still be tied to a single account login (nice idea unless you are part of the multi-box crowd). This keeps the over use of alternate character spies, look outs, bait, mules ect, low on the skill training unless they are also paid for and when they are paid for it effectively makes them another main or on an equal playing field.

It also help keep the community specialized and encourages player interactions. One player could be the gatherer, producer, and crafter all at once but it would cost him three accounts worth of training time and three time the amount of in-game time to be equal to the three other player who each spent their time focusing on a single aspect; still possible but expensive by some standards.

Unless I missed something somewhere here in the forums (it happens often) the Dev blog "Your Pathfinder Online Character" stated:

"Each of the base classes in the Pathfinder RPG Core Rulebook will be represented in the online game in this way, and in time we intend to add additional development paths to simulate prestige classes, archetypes, and base classes from other Pathfinder RPG content such as the Advanced Player's Guide and the Ultimate rulebooks."

Given this statement I would expect to see all of the core classes represent in the game form day one. I also would expect prestige classes to come next as they are already putting in mechanics for pure builds with the capstone bonus. Prestige classes support the multiclass players and would require a lot more resources than adding in variant archetypes.

Also I thought the Devs stated that they are focusing on the core book first. So based on this the priority would seem to follow this pattern: core classes -> core races -> Prestige classes; as there are no archetypes in the Core Rulebook.

I would expect to see the first major update or something like an expansion to look like the Advanced Players Guide. Covering variant races and classes while also adding the next "set" of base classes. The following expansion might then bring in the ultimate line.

I was thinking that a married couple that is currently working together would get a buff. Mechanically backing in character relationships in general sounds like a good idea.

Adding a mechanical buff for marriage would not have the effect you are looking for. It would cause a lot of players to "marry" some just to get the buff. Once there is a mechanical benefit to something that is mostly about RP it will lose most of its RP value. This would be specially true in PFO where it seems to be shaping itself into a very group centric game, meaning solo players will have it rough as an adventure.

I didnt know it was happening till now, sorry I missed it.

Wouldn't archetypes just be modifications to the feat/ badge system currently being created? I would hope that they are easy to add so that the game has more variety at the start.

As for my speculation; I am going with prestige class. I think the next round will cover 1-5 prestige classes from the core book. This is assuming that the current crowdforger vote is used to create an order for the remaining core races.

Not a bad idea, though some might not like losing a day of training time.

This does make me think that the game should have some form of try before you train option though. Given that it is unlikely we will see skill resets I feel that there should be some kind of magic training room where a player can test out a skill before they start the training. A neat idea would be that on Apocalypse Day this room would be the only "safe" place so what ever you slot up in there would still count for training.

Thanks Nihimon, I missed that in there somewhere. That's enough to let me know they have a plan and that it's aligned with what I am thinking. Guess it is also time to inform my mechanically challenged guild-mates that mutliclass characters are back on the menu.

I looked at that as well. I am just hoping that those "bonuses" are still roughly as powerful as the guy not getting them because he is using more than one class ability. I can live with the they are better at X because of the bonus while I'm better at Y because I have the synergy of more than one class.

Power is simply the term I am using until I know more about the mechanics of the system. RP is really important to me an a lot of my guild but i am also a really into mechanics. I would really hate to start hearing the "why are you not pure whatever?" It is certainly not important enough to make me not play but it is important enough that i might not play a multiclass character as a main if they are all mechanically weaker than their pure class brethren.

I have been trying to think of things to constructively add to this discussion and am not sure were my thoughts fit in beyond the following.

Capstones are part of the core RPG sure but i have never had them come up. All of the Adventure paths and modules i have come across never reach 20th level. I know they are there to reward dedicated game play but they feel more like a punishment to multiclassing. Since nothing i have encountered has reached 20th level none of my players nor myself have ever had to deal with them or balance anything around them and they are generally ignored.

This will not be possible in an Online game. At some point someone will reach those capstones. I do not think they should be better than someone that mutliclass, just different. They should be balanced as a whole; 20 "levels" in one "class" should be fairly equal to 20 "levels" in more than one class as far as power goes. This is only for Mechanical reasons. The dedicated player will get something neat that the multi class player cannot and the mulitclass player can do something else that the dedicated player cannot, but they should be equally balanced in "power" (or whatever the Devs determine is the mechanical balance for the game)

This become even more important as more things are added to the game. The start of the game will not have prestige classes nor will it see the non-core base classes. They will at some point be added. This will cause some issues for the Devs. When they add another base class does that mean those that have been playing so far are now X time behind the power curve, do they get a "skill reset" and now day one of new class they have X time invested but no idea what they are doing (yay new class introduction), ect. Then there are the prestige classes.

Prestige classes receive some type of "capstone" ability for completing it. In the RPG they are not really balanced against the 20th level capstones but share the same feel. They are also rarely taken as only a few games seem to ever get that high. But when they do the GM will look at each player and determent if something needs to be changes to keep the game fair and balance among the players. This also cannot happen in an MMO. The balance needs to be designed into the system before player ever have access then constantly tweaked as players find new and creative ways to manipulate the system.

Playing a single class character verses playing a multiclass character should be a choice the player decides but it should never encouraged/ discouraged by mechanics. If one is more "powerful" than the other in an MMO the majority of player will roll that version. Please keep the choices meaningful but also balanced. This will only help make the game a better place to play.

On a personal note: I plan to play a Mystic Theurge. I know it will not be in the game to start. It is, however, a core book prestige class and i expect it to be among the first prestige classes to make it into the game. I also plan to "hedge my bets" by running a second account that is a single class character. If in the end multiclass characters end up being second class citizens in PFO i will discontinue the multiclass account. So far i have recommend not playing multiclass characters to my friends that do not understand MMO's as it currently looks like they will not be on par with single class characters. This may change as more information is released and i get my hands on the game in alpha.

The main issue i see for this kind of system is bounties. How do i place a bounty on someone i "do not know" but has killed me or how do i collect a bounty if I do not know the name or could not see the name of my target?