Zanathos's page

Obviously it's not A, since it's says an attack roll is required. The feat summary on the chart, the name of the feat, it's pre-reqs, the fact that it synergizes better with monk levels in the same way Stunning Fist does...I'm lost as to how anyone can look at this and think it WASN'T intended for unarmed strikes only. Ergo, B. Also, FAQ'd.

What about monk weapons that can be used with Flurry of Blows? It would be silly if it didn't work with them. If it works with a quarterstaff or a kama or shuriken, why not any other weapon.

I do agree that it only works with attacks that require a to hit roll... but then, wouldn't it work with a touch attack? Especially one based off of a Qinggong monk ability?

I was the one who started this line of questioning that caused blahpers to hunt this up. I don't want assumptions based on preconceived notions or personal prejudices. I want the rules. I haven't been able to find a ruling in the FAQ off of this. I'm not super familiar with this website, I could simply be missing it.

Sorry if I'm coming off as rude, I don't mean to. It's really important to me that I know one way or the other before I present this to my GM, or at least that I have all the pertinent arguments(which I'd say that I have at this point). Still, anyone know if it's in the FAQ? I can't find it.

Wow. I never thought of it that way. I'm definitely interested in the results of your search. I think I'll try one myself.

FAQ wrote:

This means there is no game mechanical reason to require magic fang and similar spells to specify one body part for an enhanced unarmed strike. Therefore, a creature's unarmed strike is its entire body, and a magic fang (or similar spell) cast on a creature's unarmed strike affects all unarmed strikes the creature makes.

This answers your hesitancy. It is from the FAQ and answers it beyond any question. It is directly from Paizo, and was quoted about 5 posts up from this one. There is no question.

Hmmm. That's different from the Ultimate Combat version of Efreeti style. They must have changed it to close just such a loophole.

They should have simply said, 'you gain a bonus to Elemental Fist damage rolls equal to your Wisdom bonus.' or some such. Paizo should know how important wording is in such cases by now. :)

So I have a question regarding the interaction of these feats. I just reached 8th level monk(master of many styles and Qingong monk) and am also 3rd tier mythic champion with the Elemental Fist(mythic) feat. This is going to get complicated, and I may simply be wrong in several of my assumptions but that's why I'm here! :)

The problem I'm running into is this. If I expend a point of mythic power, it makes the style affect my elemental damage for the entire round. So, if I'm using, say, Efreeti style and I also use Amazing Initiative to use the Qinggong monk ability Scorching Ray or Dragon's Breath(Amazing Initiative precludes using the action for casting a spell, but these are spell-like abilities) to do fire damage, would I add my wisdom to the damage from these abilities?

Normally, it's obvious that it wouldn't since Elemental Fist only applies to that one attack but since the mythic version of the power causes it to count until the beginning of the next turn it seems as if it should count.

What do you say, oh gurus of Pathfinder rules?!

The point is, hackers are generally pretty smart people. Thinking that game companies don't keep them out of the game out of laziness or some other weird reasoning is simply wrong. Any person that has the motivation and is decently competent can do it... and get away with it. They can ban and suspend accounts used by hackers, and they do, but it doesn't even slow them down. The only real defense against hackers is users being smarter...

Griefers are a different story. Game companies can do a good bit about them. However, the user end is also super important there. I can't tell you how many times I've played online games and been present for griefing, only to have other people tell me they're too busy to report the griefers. League of Legends is a perfect example. Reporting someone for trolling/ afking/feeding couldn't possibly be easier, and so often people won't take the LITERALLY 5 seconds to do it. They sure do like to complain about all the jerks in the game though.

Drives me crazy.

Zanathos wrote:

Rafkin wrote:

The environment destruction of EQ Next doesn't really add to my interest. Chopping down trees is cool but it worked in Vanguard without Voxels.

I agree with your point as far as it goes. Vanguard, however, doesn't let you knock down castles... and there is an in game video of a giant iron golem doing just that. It doesn't let you blow up a bridge with enemies on it, dropping them into the area below - again, another in game example shown at SOE Live.

And castles are destroyable structures in Pathfinder Online as currently described, no Voxels needed.

If PFO has buildable bridges (which I hope), those should be destroyable, and Voxels aren't needed for falling.
Voxels is just a way to have a consistent visual result of partial damage that doesn't require hand-tuning per object.
A non-Voxel approach very well may allow a partially destroyed castle wall to develop holes/cracks that allow passage thru them.
It doesn't require Voxels to allow modifying the terrain surface or even for digging tunnels,
and a specific object-tuned, non-Voxel approach to progressive damage may very well look much better than a Voxel approach anyways.
Implementing Voxels doesn't seem likely to make it any easier to achieve the desired gameplay or a better quality version of that gameplay,
and it seems to require specific compensatory mechanism in order to prevent that desired gameplay from being sabotaged and made impossible.

Hmmm... have you read the responses from the two Devs that posted in this very thread? From their responses, it sure doesn't sound like their world is destructible. The only way to have destructible castles/bridges in a game without voxels is to have some prescripted event that causes this.

In most modern MMO's(including, it sounds like, PFO) you need to do one single specific thing(usually part of a quest or event) to blow something up. In EQN, anyone with an ability that can blow up a patch of ground can blow up a bridge. That is an enormous difference. You may not be interested or excited about this, but I am. The idea of using terrain as part of tactical combat seems both epic and awesome!

It seems like I read that the persistent damage would last based on how many people are in the area. So if its just your group around maybe the castle stays broken the whole time you're there. If a bunch of groups are around it repairs in 5 min...or so.

I watched all of the official stuff and the panels AND a bunch of interviews and didn't see anything about that... but it sounds awesome. :) It makes sense that if they have an instanced dungeon, they wouldn't need to repair the damage as quickly.

I'm surprised that the MMO Corporations don't just get together, compiled a Black-Book of known Griefing IP Addresses and just put a block on them so long as the current owner is at their address.

You can't ban people for their IP addresses. CAN NOT. That isn't how IP adresses work. Short version is this. Most people's router randomly chooses a temporary IP address. There are billions of possible combinations, and the router simply checks to see that no one else is using that one at that time. Certain things that you do can cause that IP address to be reset to a different one. Legitimately, an IP address used by a hacker today could be some innocent person's IP an hour later.

This is a very simplified version of how this works - look up information on 'temporary IP addresses' if you want a more technical version. Even a mediocre hacker will never be caught this way... it only works if the person is still connected in the same session as the IP trace is run for.

You are correct about taking away the loopholes that griefers use to be jerks. It's why GW has so many different automatic systems in place to keep PvP regulated.

Griefers, by definition, are players going out of their way to make the play experience less or even UNenjoyable for as many other players as they can. Even at the risk of penalties to themselves. Their only enjoyment from playing games is making other's lives miserable.

Of course PFO doesn't want them around. Open pvp games make this type of activity much easier to engage in, as they can disguise their griefing more easily as 'playing the game'. It's why flags, alignment and reputation are so important. Checks and balances are required to cut down on as much of this kind of gameplay automatically as possible. While such systems have the unfortunate side effect of limiting players who want to play antagonistic characters(I mean this as the antonym of protagonists, not in any negative manner) the loss is more than worthwhile cutting down on the amount of griefing possible.

Hackers are a different story. In most games, hackers use the systems in game to steal accounts and strip them bare, reselling what they can before whatever support systems Developers place in their games allow account recovery. Occasionally, they find a backdoor that let's them gain GM or even admin priviledges. Those are the ones that are the real problem. If a hacker can even gain GM priviledges in an MMO, they can do a lot of damage just by spawning resources and reselling them to unsuspecting customers. There are also autokill commands, normally for making players respawn if they get 'stuck' or fall through the world.

Or course GW wants to keep this kind of thing from happening as much as possible. There's really no way to stop it completely. Every major company has accounts hacked regularly - there's simply no way to stop people from doing the silly things that allow keyloggers onto their systems. No matter how smart programmers are in their antivirus and security protocols, it always takes less effort to break something down than to build it up. It will always be about damage control, and systems to detect and minimize the damage.

The environment destruction of EQ Next doesn't really add to my interest. Chopping down trees is cool but it worked in Vanguard without Voxels.

I agree with your point as far as it goes. Vanguard, however, doesn't let you knock down castles... and there is an in game video of a giant iron golem doing just that. It doesn't let you blow up a bridge with enemies on it, dropping them into the area below - again, another in game example shown at SOE Live.

You're certainly allowed to not be excited about this. Maybe it's just not a big deal to you. It is a pretty big deal to many gamers, though. To me, too. :) The only real question is how much instancing will it require and how long will the damage persist. If the world fixes itself every 2 minutes, that's going to break immersion pretty quickly. To me, that's going to be that hard part to get right. Keeping the world from being, as several others put it, a blasted moonscape without having it autorepair itself every couple minutes. If they can strike a decent balance or figure a way to allow the cool factor to still be in there while limiting griefing jerks from ruining things for everyone else... because there will ALWAYS be people in any online game that just want to do whatever they can to take enjoyment away from others. Internet anonymity has many advantages and our privacy rights are amazing, but this is an unfortunate side effect of it.

I was fine with the female character. The lion really was Saturday Morning Cartoons however. Is it plausible that te character customisation will allow diversity from cartoon to gritty? Eg Zanathos your Avatar is the spitting image of concept artwork for EQ:N, incidentally?

So as with LoL a broad range of avatars from cute to goofy to sinister to cool to gritty will be on te table to appeal to a broad audience? Though the fact it is minecraft inspired and cartoon style make me thing the audience EQ:N most wants is a younger one who'll create their community as with wow for a good number of years in that 1 mmo??

I definitely woke up the next morning seeing a few more grey hairs in the mirror!

Amusingly enough, this avatar is directly from the Paizo forum list of avatar images. I chose it because it's the samurai and because the character has a shaved head - like me. :)

I'm a big fan of anime and manga, and the characters evoke that feel. Among the younger generations, that style of art is pretty stylish. I'm hoping that the different races will have a variety of 'themes' similar to what you brought up. The dark elves will almost assuredly be much darker themed from their concept art. The iksar(lizard men), trolls and ogres will probably also fill those categories.

I'm not terribly happy with their choice for the kerran remake. After Luclin(the xpac that introduced the kerrans as a playable race) I almsot exclusively played them. They used to have a variety of different looks which corresponded to several of the great hunting cats including tigers, panthers, and cheetahs. I'm hoping there will be options for several other types of kerrans and this one version is not the only one available. I'd be surprised if they have less character customization than in EQ2... the amount of customization possible in that game is pretty wide ranging. Not City of Heroes or Champions Online big, but still decent.

I'm fairly sure they're trying to make a game that can repeat their success with the original EQ. A company doesn't take the kinds of risks SOE is with this game by integrating so much new tech and going against accepted tropes in the genre without expecting big success. Certainly they want to appeal to a younger audience, but let's face it, I'm no spring chicken anymore and I've been a fan of anime for over 25 years now. This anime-esque art style doesn't just appeal to kids and teens...

Not only did they look like Disney characters, did you notice that the example were Beauty and the Beast?

While I certainly won't advocate such a look for video games, there are a few rather salient points. Such 'cartoonish' looks don't age as badly as more realistic looks(MoP WoW models look nearly the same as vanilla WoW models, at least for the races that were in the game then). Who didn't watch Disney films growing up? We are already exposed to, and thus the suspension of disbelief hurdle has already been passed over for, these kinds of cartoony graphics in every Disney movie ever.

I'm not sure of the Beauty and the Beast example was a conscious one on their part, but I sure can't deny how spot on it is... if Beauty can teleport and blow up bridges. ;P

I'm really interested to see if they can pull it off, because, as Ryan notes, persistent world-wandering NPCs are something every MMO designer wants to be available in his or her heart of hearts :) .

The problem, however, is that "stuff AI has to do to interact with the world" has been scaling up at the same time server power has. For example, the more beautiful the terrain gets, the more complicated it is for the AI to figure out how to path across it in a way that looks correct. If anything, I suspect this will be even worse for EQNext: the AI has to account for destroyed terrain or it'll keep getting stuck in pits that weren't there when it decided to start walking, and that's a lot of processing games with permanent walkable terrain don't have to worry about.

You might be able to do it if you have an AI specialist and optimize your game at a base level to run AI in this fashion, which hopefully EQNext is doing. But if there's any waste in the calculations per creature, the server cycles start to add up really quickly when you're talking about thousands of AI entities. Most games wind up vastly simplifying AI behaviors when NPCs are "off screen" and not being observed by any players, only giving them full AI processing when they're engaged by players.

Ultimately, the limitation is that "if an NPC marches through a forest and there's nobody there to see it..." You can usually accomplish the majority of your goals by just having simplified but smart processes decide where to spawn creatures, and the majority of your players wouldn't be able to tell the difference between that system and a fully emergent behavioral one. You lose some of the interesting emergent properties, but the load created by the simple system is drastically less.

The EQ Next Devs have done everything but come right out and say that they're trying to take the title belt back from WoW. They're attempting to take a lot of ideas from different genres and put them together - pretty much WoW's recipe for success - in a way that hasn't been done before. They want to push the boundaries of what's possible with the tech available. Individually, nothing they're doing is really new. It's the synthesis of these things, and the Massively Multiplayer environment that is the big deal. It's fascinating and exciting, both as a fan of the genre AND as someone with an interest in and learning about programming.

It's interesting that people in the field are just as interested and excited about this as I am. :)

The idea of "turn the monsters loose and let the AI sort it out" has been a part of the MMO world since Ultima Online. And it's been tried several times, and every time it fails. It fails for a couple of reasons.

First, the back-end network, processor, and database bandwidth to make "smart" AIs has not been available. The systems break when they hit server-side limits.

Second, the players have been able to exploit these systems more quickly than the developers can address the exploits. The exploits include creating "farms" of high-value mobs, or asymmetrically unbalancing the world in such a way as to generate unexpected and unwanted behavior (the canonical example from the early days of Ultima Online before they abandoned this concept was that dragons hunted sheep, and the players realized that if they managed the wild sheep population by killing sheep on sight, the dragons would be drawn to pre-selected live sheep zones where the dragons could be slaughtered by overprepared gangs of player characters, turning a dragon encounter from a rare, wilderness event into a scheduled loot drop. I think this abuse showed up in beta and may never have made it into the live game...)

I hope SOE has solved both of these problems because this concept has been a dream of the designers of videogames from the first days of videogames. I'll remain a skeptic until I see it work at scale, under real world conditions.

You can read some of Raph Koster's original design ideas for "AI mobs" here:

Raph Koster talks about Ultima Online's Resource System Part I

Raph Koster talks more about Ultima Online's Resource system including how AI worked in Part II

It's kind of awesome that he talks about using Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs for his in-game A.I. I've had discussions about this with some of my fellow Comp Sci students after I learned about it in a Psych class. It makes a ton of sense. I have to say that I'm kind of sad that this wasn't tried in UO. According to the article, in never made it much past their early alpha because the programmer in charge of the game's A.I. code thought it was a waste of time... but he claims that it worked quite well originally.

On the other hand, Developers now have many less hardware limitations imposed on them. Heck, most people's cell phones are more powerful than a tower PC in 1996... by many orders of magnitude.

Does that make it possible? Maybe.

Is it an exciting idea? Most assuredly.

Can they pull it off? That's the question, as you say. Still, it's really exciting stuff! :)

Zanathos wrote:

I played EQ1 from launch, for over 6 years. I loved that game.

I loved it, too :) I met my wife on EverQuest.

Zanathos wrote:

There were many questions asked about PvP and the EQ Next Devs always answered with, 'We aren't allowed to talk about that right now' or a variation thereof.

The one thing I heard in that video about PvP mentioned "Scenarios", which leads me to believe it's not going to be an Open PvP game. It would be extremely foolish of them to spring "Open PvP" on their fans later down the road.

One of my old friends in New Orleans met his wife playing EQ, also. That's awesome man! :)

While I doubt the world will be open PvP by default, I'd be very surprised if there weren't open PvP servers. EQ released them, and variations of them on demand from the player base. The alignment based servers were the only ones I spent any time on, but I enjoyed them a lot. My Dark Elf Necromancer fear kiting players in East Commons, though it usually ended poorly for me, is still a cherished memory of EQ.

The only problem with this kind of approach is that since the players are all supposed to be part of the Combine Empire, fleeing Kunark to establish Qeynos as their first outpost on the continent since the Ring of Scale forced them to flee 500 years earlier, it's going to be a much more difficult sell as to why the races or factions are fighting on another. The reason for the open PvP will have to be significantly different than in past EQ's.

That being said, the team at EQNext has had a bunch of surprising announcements. They promised they had just as many bombshells still to come, suggesting that they were rationing them out to keep the 'hype-o-meter' raging. At this point, nothing would really surprise me.

I figure its about 70% likely that the entire possibility matrix is decoded and available online before all of the possible permutations are actually exemplified. As you add dimensions to the matrix, the number of permutations available increases geometrically, while the amount of information required to determine all of the permutations increases linearly.

I, for one, will not miss camping the froglok messenger spawn until I can get the 10 unique pages required to complete a quest that provides a reward which is subpar to that which is given away in the next expansion.

Again, the Devs refused to discuss crafting but insisted this was going to be a sandbox game which pretty much means that the best gear will come from crafting.

I remember camping in Lower Guk trying to get an FBSS for my human monk. The constant shouts of, 'train to zone!' Those were the days. :)

Since it looks like a good deal of a character's progression will come from collecting 'classes' so that you can mix and match abilities and collecting the gear that will enhance those abilities(more like LoL's item progression, but even more specific to individual abilities), AND that they've said that they'll be consistently releasing new classes and new gear(which won't necessarily be stronger, just have different stat combinations) the game's 'meta' should be constantly shifting.

Sorry, I probably shouldn't having a nerdgasm about EQN on a PFO forum. I am just as excited about PFO, but for now EQN has more recent shinies for me to geek out about.

;P

EverQuest Next Worldwide Debut

Part 1 (start at about the 26 minute mark to skip to the meat)

Part 2

The one thing that really stuck out in my mind while I was watching these - aside from the "I bet it's not persistent" thought I've already mentioned, is that it's all PvE. It surprised me when I realized how thoroughly I've bought into Ryan's arguments about Open PvP making everything else meaningful.

All of those "Dynamic Quests" are pulled from a matrix of options, and all of those options are defined by the devs (zone builders, content creators, whatever you want to call them). Likewise, the "Rallying Calls" are PvE designed by devs, even if they do have lots of variation coded in. Watching all of that, I just couldn't shake the idea that it's going to get boring and repetitive, and it won't be long before that entire matrix is decoded.

The Human Interaction in PFO will always hold the promise that you'll be surprised by what happens next. EQ Next, not so much...

Let me state this up front. I played EQ1 from launch, for over 6 years. I loved that game. I would lie if I said I wasn't hyped about this.

That being said, they haven't even talked about PvP. There were many questions asked about PvP and the EQ Next Devs always answered with, 'We aren't allowed to talk about that right now' or a variation thereof. However, the Devs have spent a LOT of time talking about pulling inspiration from Eve Online and League of Legends. Like, as much as GW has on here. That doesn't really give us any answers, but I doubt any game that claims that much influence from Eve and LoL can't have a ton of pvp options.... certainly they'll have open PvP servers, though I don't doubt there will be PvE servers, too.

There's too much we don't know about this game right now. All I do know is that I'll almost certainly be throwing money at BOTH PFO and EQNext....

My wife will almost certainly make me play EQ Next; I don't expect to be satisfied with it. Unfortunately, I'm not sure I can expect her to be satisfied with PFO, either; she's very fond of doing quests - the more the better. We'll see whether or not I can redirect that energy towards accomplishing things in PFO without having a story-centric quest line to follow.

All I can say is that SOE and the EQ Next Devs really are promising the moon at this point when it comes to this. They have said that because of the new 'emergent' A.I., quests with question marks over people's heads are going to be completely gone. In EQ Next(according to the reveal last week) there will be no 'spawn points'. Monsters will be created and released to go to where they please as determined by a list of wants and needs. Orcs like gold and killing adventures, and dislike guards and getting beat up. So they find a place that satisfies these requirements. If too many of them get killed by adventurers, they move or go running to the orc boss for reinforcements. There is no set place for this. While servers will likely be the same at launch, one of EQNext's big promises is that the different servers can be completely different as far as these things are concerned. East Commons Highway on 1 server may have an enormous orc camp. On a different one it could be kobolds, or nothing at all!

They've also promised that exploring will be what gets you into adventures. You're walking down the road and find a farm being attacked by orcs. You can choose to help the farmers, help the orcs, or ignore it and walk away. Depending on a variety of things, this can get you rewards from a variety of sources.

There might be a bounty board asking you to clean the undead and cultists out of a graveyard, and offering cash for doing so. There are also going to be really large scale public quests(in the 2 to 3 month long variety) ending in permanent changes to the world. That's about as close as EQ Next gets to traditional quests... according to what they've revealed so far.

Anyone who has played MMO's for a while has seen games that have promised the moon and fallen short, but the tech that they've shown off so far is impressive. Between voxels, scrapping the holy trinity and the new A.I. they've already added things that I've wanted as a gamer for years in my MMO's. It still remains to be seen if they can pull off any of this in a way that works and isn't a disaster, but if they do...

WoW.

;)

Couldn't help it. It really could be the next really big thing.

Ryan Dancey wrote:

What we can't figure out is how much instancing is going to be a part of EQ Next. With destructible terrain, if it's not highly instanced, then the higher the character density the more destruction the world will be subjected to. From where we're sitting, we think the game has to be very highly instanced, or it will just be a ruined moonscape. That seems to argue against the first "M".

That sounds less like a fantasy MMO, and more like an environmental science simulation. "Play as the ancient Easter Islanders! Watch your civilization collapse as you exceed the carrying capacity of your farmland! Or play as Oklahoma farmers in the early 20th century, and watch your farms turn into a dust bowl during a drought (procedurally generated by our random weather simulator)! Create your own Appalachian moonscape with mountaintop removal mining! Poison your village water supply and air with mercury-based gold mining and cadmium dust!"

Historically, we got away with a lot because the planet is really big, and we had a relatively small population. I agree with Ryan: At the population density of the average themepark MMO (several thousand players on a world map of about 75 - 100 square miles), the moonscapes would take over the landscape pretty quickly if they weren't instanced.

Landmark is a separate game. The only things in common are the voxels used to build them and a single continent on each 'world' of Landmark that has SOE enforced Norrath(EQ's 'world') artistic direction. At SOE Live, the EQ Next devs said that they'll run contests with several requirements to build certain types of buildings. The example was given was a temple to the god of plague to be placed in a specific zone. They'll give general dimensions and some features they're looking for and then let the player's votes guide them to the best content. They'll take what they like the best and plop it down in the game with the player who created it's name on it somewhere/somehow.

As far as the destructibility goes, they've said that areas they don't won't destroyed can't be affected by other players. The examples given were player housing/guild housing and major cities. Players won't be able to just demolish Qeynos(one of the main starting cities in EQ1/EQ2 and, at least for now, the starting city in EQ Next). Other areas will respawn/fix themselves every so often. There aren't details yet, obviously, and this will be part of what the Betas are for...

What we can't figure out is how much instancing is going to be a part of EQ Next. With destructible terrain, if it's not highly instanced, then the higher the character density the more destruction the world will be subjected to. From where we're sitting, we think the game has to be very highly instanced, or it will just be a ruined moonscape. That seems to argue against the first "M".

In addition to the statements about the temporariness of the damage to the areas, they ALSO talked about how weapon tiers increased the amount of environmental damage that was done. A weapon that coincides with the lowest 'Tier' of gear does the least damage to the landscape. Just from the stuff from SOE Live, there are at least 5 tiers of character level and it was alluded that there was different gear for each character tier.

They also alluded to the fact that the characters being used in the demo were the max level. I'll admit that a lot of this is reading between the lines, but it's the only thing that makes sense to me. If it takes several months(or longer) to reach the highest tier of weapons(and skills) a lot of the novelty of being able to destroy things will fade for MOST players over that time. Of course there will still be people who just want to destroy things. I'm sure that GM's and probably even Guides(basically a player GM) will be able to deal with such things.

Also, they said that many areas will be immune to damage from players. So Qeynos, Freeport, and other major cities won't be affected by such things from players. If each server is designed to generate a few dozen 'instances' of each area or zone, even if they don't have loading screens between zones it seems as if this would also keep this kind of damage to a minimum.

On top of this, they've said that the server will track every one of your actions. Is it too difficult to imagine that it would also track this kind of behavior and automatically shunt players of a more destructive bent all to the same instances of a zone. Heck, you could even determine that randomly, depending on how many 'destroyers' were in a particular instance.

The ability to create dozens or even hundreds of instances of an area seems to fit with most of their stated 'Grails'. Combined with everything else, it seems like it should work. There will always be people who just want to destroy other people's hard work. It doesn't seem that difficult to get around them considering all of the crazy effort they've already put into new things for EQ Next.

Also, I wanted to ask what you thought of EQ Next Landmark. I know(working on my Comp Sci degree with an eye towards making games) that art assets are one of the most expensive and labor intensive parts of a video game. Is it just me, or is EQ Next Landmark the most ingenious part of all of this? They're literally getting their players to do one of the most expensive, laborious parts of making an MMO for them... It was easily the most shocking and cool part of all this for me.

I would love to see GW do something using the idea of players taking on the roles of NPC's officially.

Allow anyone who enters the game to play the bad guys in randomly created monster versus player content. It could be raiding parties, people playing monsters in instanced dungeons, or any of a ton of other ways.

Put in some kind of a rating system allowing players to gain 'ranks' as NPC players. When they reach a certain point, they get to play instance bosses, the end 'boss' of an escalation, perhaps even at some point allow the most dedicated NPC players to take on the role of other important NPC's in the game.

This keeps even the PvE content as more involved and exciting!

All this aside, I'd like to help out with your idea as well. :)

You have to try to look at this from GW's point of view. How does someone get to be Chaotic Evil? Other than the tiny percentage(in terms of an MMO) that will do it for roleplaying purposes, you become chaotic evil by being one of gank happy jerks that MOST MMO players don't want to play with. Or deal with. Ever.

The point of putting limitations on CE settlements is to discourage people from BEING CE. Even though they really DO make sense - the ruler of a CE settlement is generally an individually mighty being - an insanely powerful mage or cleric, a warrior who is too powerful for anyone to even consider fighting, an assassin who just makes anyone who even CONSIDERS messing with them disappear. People like this don't WANT their followers to be strong enough to challenge them for supremacy... at least in fiction. It is a bad place to be. If you really want to be CE for roleplaying purposes badly enough, there are loopholes to allow players to get around the problems. They're tough loopholes, though.

Intentionally. I'm sorry, but multiple checks and balances are important. Ryan Dancey talked about this in his most recent interview, how no one system can possibly control the tens of thousands of players in an MMO. The more that automatic systems, such as alignment and reputation, keeps problem players under control the easier it is for the GM's to focus on the real problems.

Honestly, I think Neutral Evil needs to be just as rough as CE.

It's a shame that GW needs to look at it from the point of view of 'how do we control the KSing, backstabbing, awful humans playing the game' and not just 'how do we make this the most awesome game ever!' Unfortunately, anyone who's ever played an MMO knows that the internet is full of jerks. PvP games make it much worse. Go play a few games of League of Legends in solo queue if you disagree. If GW doesn't do things like this, there won't BE a PFO in a few years because, in a game that's supposed to be mostly community driven content, no one will want to deal with the community.

I'm sorry, but the limits GW is proposing to keep CE communities under control are absolutely necessary.

LeeSw wrote:

As for the mechanical benefit, it does in it allows skills and abilities one without can not have yet.

I understand your concern - I don't want to feel like I'm making a bad choice if I refuse to make my Paladin a Dwarf - and "over thinking" these things is half the fun of paying attention :)

That said, I think the "yet" in your quote above is the key.

The +2 Int that a new Elf character has over a new Human character is no different than the +whatever Int that a veteran Human character has over a new Elf player.

After a certain amount of time, it just won't matter at all.

Actually, I think it COULD be just the opposite. To go with the discussed example, an elf wizard will ALWAYS have an Int 2 points higher than any other race who is a wizard(unless they also have a +2 Int mod). He will ALWAYS be able to get access to wizard(i.e. Int based) skills and spells significantly earlier than other races.

If a race can't have that bonus modifier, you probably won't see people playing a class tied to it. A lot depends on how much of a difference this makes, because we already know that there are other limitations on advancement. GW's going to have a pretty difficult tight rope to walk in order to keep the racial bonuses significant without making them overpowering. If it takes 3 months for a wizard(w/o a +2 int mod) to go from a 16 int to an 18 int, and that's designed to be a major limiter on advancement, then an elf wizard will be able to bypass those 3 months. That seems like a pretty big deal to me.

Balance in an MMO is much different than balance in a tabletop RPG... The general populace will always try to take the most efficient, fastest method of advancement, no matter what. Especially in a pvp-centric game like PFO. It's just an undeniable fact built into the genre.

Zanathos wrote:

Asmodeus is worshiped by the the Hellknights, one of the major NPC groups in PFO so I would say that's a resounding 'YES!'

In the Pathfinder world, most of the really powerful demon and devil lords - the named ones from classis D&D are all deities of some form or the other. The ones that have been used in the Pathfinder realms are literally deities, and have worshippers, can grant spells and so on.

I don't know how many organized churches there will be... that's the only question here, really.

Not technically deities. They are simply (very) powerful outsiders with the ability to grant spells to worshipers. Treerazor is a Nascent Demon Lord (an almost but not quite demon lord) and thus has the power to grant spells and has two(?) domains. But he is not a god. An important technicality, as these not-gods are kill-able with "mere" epic-level characters. Gods tend to have specific kill conditions.

@Quandary: There are no LG Hellknights. LN, yes, but none of them are Good. The whole concept of Hellknights is that they revere the strongly ordered nature of Hells. They venerate the plane itself more than the god that currently rules over it (Asmodeus).

If any of them worship a god that isn't LE, its probably Abadar, the LN god of cities and secrets.

@Bluddwolf: Urgathoa might be your bag, but she's also a goddess of Undeath. She's basically about partying until the end of time. There may be an obscure-ish Demon Lord for you.

You need to go back and re-read that section. The reason that Treerazor isn't considered a god is because he's only a 'nascent' demon lord. There's a difference between, say, a Balor Lord and a Demon Lord. A Balor Lord is the equivalent of a Solar... a Demon Lord is a unique being and is technically a deity in Pathfinder. They may only technically be the equivalent of a demigod, but still they qualify, at least on their own home planes.

I can't help but think of Vlad Taltos from Steven Brust's Jhereg novels. He is by far my favorite literary assassin. His background reminds me a lot of this conversation... he went from hired muscle given 'jobs' by his higher ups to a boss in his own right, picking the jobs that he wants to do, when he wants to do them... for the most part. There were still occasional jobs that he got forced to take, even though he really didn't want them.

Nothing to do with the conversation really, just passing through! Don;t mind me!

suggestions on one you like?

The basic Logitech 5 button mouse(r-click, l-click, right and left side buttons, plus mouse wheel click & left/right lean) is the one I use on my lap top and is suitable for basic gaming needs. It's the one that gives 21 hotkeys when used with 'Q' and 'E' plus shift and alt modifiers. Logitech has more expensive gaming mouses that give many more options. They make durable mouses that can really last - my wireless laser laptop mouse has thousands of gaming hours on it with zero problems.

Razor also makes an amazing gaming mouse, but they get a bit pricier.

The only reason I bought the more expensive Logitech gaming mouse for my home system is that I was playing a lot of Diablo 3 at the time and with it's 9 button set up, I could play the game pretty much one handed. I only needed to touch the keyboard to open my inventory or the map.

What can I say? Lazy is good. :)

You can get a pretty basic mouse for under $30 that has up to 5 additional buttons on it... with using a shift modifier, that's 10 hot keys without ever having to move your fingers off of WASD. If your keyboard allows easy access to Alt, that's 15. If you add in Q and E that's 21 hotkeys without ever moving your fingers or taking your eyes off of the monitor once you get some practice.

It's really the way to go. If you buy a more expensive gaming mouse, you can have 30+ hotkeyed abilities without really moving your fingers off of WASD or your eyes from your monitor with a little practice.

It makes an enormous difference.

Asmodeus is worshiped by the the Hellknights, one of the major NPC groups in PFO so I would say that's a resounding 'YES!'

In the Pathfinder world, most of the really powerful demon and devil lords - the named ones from classis D&D are all deities of some form or the other. The ones that have been used in the Pathfinder realms are literally deities, and have worshippers, can grant spells and so on.

I don't know how many organized churches there will be... that's the only question here, really.

I thought the Devs had proposed some sort of system where you get your contracts through something similar to the bounty system. Maybe that was all in my head.

Anyway, a good way to do this would be for there to be a ranking system that determined a minimum price for an assassination attempt based on the targets 'experience'. Yes, someone who has spent most of their exp on crafting and harvesting skills will be a MUCH softer target than one who is 100% combat, but the crafter/harvester should have a ton more money for hiring bodyguards...

There should be some modifier to the contract based on the assassin who is willing to accept the contract. The more successful the assassin, the higher price he can demand. Also, the assassin should be able to leverage this price a certain percentage up or down depending on personal reasons, greed, elitism, dislike of the target, good customer discount, etc.

If an in game system is used for this and down by some sort of mail system, both the customer and the assassin can remain anonymous... something both parties will want. Also, it helps GW to set some kind of boundaries to prevent price gouging on both sides...

Maybe there's an NPC assassin's guild that establishes prices - even if the players don't have to belong to it, their standard rates can control(as an in game reason for the mechanic) how much players can charge and how much they have to pay...

Just a first brainstorm on the matter.

With a System like the one PFO is looking at we as players will need to abuse it, to see if a certain set allows one to be 2nd and 3rd best at everything, as that will be a powerful and maybe Overpowered set.

I see a Monk having Self Heals only.

Attacking very fast, but each hit is lighter than a fighter.
Have to watch Hate build up here, as many games with Monks it was easy to go to Top of list, as each hit added and the damage.

Lee

While it's certainly not best for any class to be 2nd or 3rd best at anything, it IS ok for them to be 2nd or 3rd best at a few things. Really, it matters how big a difference there is between 1st and 3rd as well as between 3rd and 4th.

For instance, if the fighter is king of sustained dps at 1000 dps, second is the rogue at 900, then the monk is third at 800 that isn't really that big of a deal as long as 4th, 5th, and 6th are 795, 790, and 750... Of course, if the fighter is at 1000, the rogue is at 950 and the monk is at 925, with the 4th, 5th and 6th placers still at 795, 790, and 750 then that is a pretty hugely big difference!

It isn't what place they come in at, but rather what percentage of 1st they're at and what percent everyone else is at. Also, considering the amount of utility everyone in the game will have access to because of the proposed character advancement system, a class designed with utility in mind doesn't seem to be that big of a deal, as long as that utility doesn't overwhelm the other possibilities.

The one GOOD thing about the monk coming out later in the development cycle than other classes is that GW will have a much better idea of what builds people are using so they can be a bit more on target with their decisions for the classes overall power level considering the utility. If everyone who makes a cleric is taking a ton of fighter stuff so that all clerics and most fighters are hybrids, then how is it bad to give the monk the ability to heal? If all the mages are taking rogue stuff or barbarian stuff, then how is it a big deal to let monks have some spell like abilities?

Open advancement systems will inevitably lead to people making hybrid characters. They will do so as much as the system allows them to. While it sounds like GW has put in a decent number of knobs and levers to control abusive combinations by way of the keyword system, gamers will still all trend towards whatever abuse the system allows. In an open pvp world, this will be even WORSE than in a pve game because a 5 or 10% power advantage means a world of difference in pvp... Lots of times, the difference between an 'efficient' character and one that isn't is MUCH more than that!

Being wrote:

Utterly false. When EQ opened it was indeed an adventure, and it was like magic.

How did your subjective experience become objective fact while mine is "utterly false"?

Being wrote:

After the first year when organized minmaxing and guild metagaming transformed that magic into humdrum labor, eliminating all sense of story and play by sacrificing individuality and personality as the control obsessed and codependent groups required specific builds and political hierarchy in order to succeed, then yes, it was what you describe. That was not EQ's doing: It was the peer pressure control oriented Hitler wannabes' doing.

Sorry if I sound a touch vehement.

It's always a great idea to finish up one's argument with some good old Godwin's 'Law' hyperbole. No, wait... reverse that.

Those were players reacting to their environment, an environment which punished exploration pretty harshly. My Bartle scores tend to sort out in a Explorer > Achiever > Socializer > Killer order, and regardless of the value of the test as a description of gamer psychology as a whole, that fits me rather well. Spending a lot of time in an area in order to explore another, only to be stomped into level-loss and have to go back, made me see why people gravitated towards the safest drudgery. I saw many people who had been beta testers doing it from day one of release, camping guards in secluded areas of towns. I played that achiever game mostly to facilitate more freedom of exploration, but not having an established group to plug into I had to wait for high-demand soloable camping spots or join PUGs which were just about as frustrating as those 'dung' (the opposite of 'ding') moments.

I played EQ1 from launch, and to me what made it special was the quest system. There was zero handholding. Sure, it could be quite frustrating at times and a game today using it would probably die a horrible early death(see FF14's soon to come relaunch!). It told you what you needed to do, a vague reference as to where to go and let you figure it out yourself! Of course, the organization of info for online nonexistent, too. For the first year or two, there were websites you could go for hints or you could ask friends and guildies or beg for info in /ooc chat. While the internet has helped gaming in a lot of ways, this is one of the biggest things I miss from EQ1... the sense of achievement from actually figuring out how to do quests on your own. 99% of MMO's give you in game pointers to tell you exactly where to go and precisely what to do.

It's the reason I can't stop from going back to The Secret World. Some of the quests in there are HARD! Sure, you can Google the answer to any of them in seconds... but the in game quest system doesn't hold your hand.

Heck, TSW even has an in game web browser because some of the quests REQUIRE you to do online research at premade game websites for fictional corporations and message boards. It was the most awesome part of that game and really took me back to EQ1 in a lot of ways. It has it's big share of flaws, but the exploration and achievement of the game is pretty awesome. It's funny. They even have a class of quests that has a warning label on it that basically says, 'This is HARD. Put on your thinking caps and prepare to nerdgasm. Also, don't feel TOO bad if you need to Google the answers... we did say this was hard, right?' :)

I wish more games would do something similar, though a sandbox like PFO is probably not an appropriate place for that.

Back to the OP. Most game try to simulate this by using a fog of war system. Guild Wars 2 does an ok job with it. Unfortunately, I think that with today's generation of instant gratitude seeking online gamers, trained by WoW, it would be very difficult to get something like your idea in game. That's no reason not to try!

Sounds cool to me...

Ironically, the thing I would want in monks is balance. I wouldn't want to see a character than can do everything other roles can do, yet still qualify for a class cap bonuses. A monk that can fight like a fighter, heal like a cleric (even just on himself), run like a barbarian, wield energy like a mage, and creep about like a rogue, yet has STILL kept everything to within his Monk Class abilities, is somewhat out of balance with the other roles.

Of course that's ideal. No one class should be able to be better than every other option. There needs to be limitations on this just as much as there are on every other class. As long as they stick to the tabletop for their inspiration, it should be fine. While monks can fight, heal, use elemental based attacks, and even cast a few spells, no one would ever accuse them of being better melee combatants than fighters, better healers than clerics, or better spell casters than wizards or sorcerers. Not only that, but most of their most impressive abilities draw on ki. 2 points of ki to be able to heal or cast Dragon's Breath is a pretty big deal when a level 20 monk will probably only have 20 or 25 ki.

Striking a balance between all of their special powers is important for the monk. The generalist shoudl certainly never be better than the specialist at what they do... 2/3 to 3/4 of their effectiveness is about where it is in tabletop. It seems like a decent balance.

What I would really love to see is the monk 'unarmed' weapons having options. It would be super awesome if there were a number of different unarmed weapon 'types'. There would be weapons that took up 1 slot or 2 slots. This would follow the typical pattern of damage between 1 and 2 handed weapons for purposes of damage and attacks a round. Normally, you would dual wield 2 handed weapons, though a cool way to go would be to have one of the 1 handed weapons working in a similar way to a shield(the equivalent of Snapping Turtle Style in Ultimate Combat.)

1 handed weapons could be generally divided between 3 types. Fist, kick, and ki(or maybe elemental). Depending on the combination of these unarmed 'weapons' the animations would look different. 2 kick weapons means your unarmed style is almost all kicks... jumping kicks, spinning kicks, low/high kick combos, etc - very similar to tae kwon do. 2 fists would be more like boxing or kempo. Fast hand combos, palm strikes, spinning back knuckles, hooks, uppercuts. 2 ki would be the most 'special effects' intensive. Flaming(or electric, cold, acid, sonic, force, etc.) strikes. Maybe something like tai chi chuan, lots of palm strikes, simple but effective kicks. Combinations of them would be hybrids. Fist + kick = punches and kicks in combinations. Fist + ki = flaming dragon punches. You get the idea.

2 handed versions could be similar to the above combinations, but work off of the the damage tables and advantages that come with 2 handed weapons. In return, perhaps the PFO equivalent of 'flurry of blows' wouldn't work with it. So, just like normal weapons, there would be the option for a style that gives lots of attacks that hit for less damage and a style that hits less often but MUCH harder.

The advantage to this system is it makes it much simpler to program the mechanical side of unarmed combat. It works JUST like 2 weapon fighting or using a 2 hander(or in the case of the the offhand 'shield' option, just like sword and board style). The disadvantage, and the reason it probably won't be used(which makes me sad :( - this would be the best looking combat system ever!) is that it's a LOT of animations.

Whatever GW decides to do for GW, I just hope it's awesome and not lame like so many attempts at making the monk for a D&D based video game have come out as.

Zanathos wrote:

Things like this cannot be put in without thinking about the worse case scenario for it's use - because that IS how it will be used.

I'm pretty sure everybody understands that poisons are bad. Using them is a premeditated act and that they'll go chaotic and/or evil in doing so (excepting times of war, bounties, assassinations?, and a few other fringe cases).

That said, all of the horrible, despicable and reprehensible reasons you can think of are exactly why poisons should be in the game. Because they will be used that way, and that's great for us.

Zanathos wrote:

The second is that no one will go to these types of places after a while, unless it's required somehow, because they don't want to get drugged/poisoned.

That was my favorite part, it almost sounded like you were arguing for poisons right there. Factor in the implications of player alignment vs settlement alignment and how a place that had constant poisonings would likely be in a chaotic or at best neutral settlement and be fairly seedy to boot. The poisons couldn't kill people or it would have to be an evil settlement for the poisoner to be able to do this frequently and still walk around said settlement with impunity (unless they're disguised and assassinating people, but you already said this was okay).

A lot of poisoning isn't just about killing people. Reducing their effectiveness in combat could be a side effect, but reducing their effectiveness as the head blacksmith or bureaucrat would have a far greater impact without the need to go as far as murder to achieve your ends. No reason this would only need to be food/drink based either, no reason to avoid those seedy taverns. Contact poisons could be applied to a door handle, a work bench, a bed. It could be a gradual poison, it could be all sorts of poisons.

The last thing to consider is that, yes, everyone would have access to poisons, potentially. Everyone will have access to vorpal weapons eventually too, but you are only as...

Heh. So you want to not to be able to roleplay going into a tavern? I mean, every tabletop D&D game I've ever played in(the fun ones, at least) ends up with cool stuff happening in one. I'd love for a MMO to come up with an in game reason for crappy, dingy, smoky taverns to be visited regularly as an adventurer. Even more so, I'd like it if there was a reason to just stay there.

The problem is, the OP was advocating for it to be perfectly fine for a person to use poison in any settlement. They saw nothing wrong with poisoning and drugging everyone they could, at the drop of a hat. He tried to argue he wanted to use it in self defense, that poisoning someone in a tavern was okay because that mean guy he was poisoning was a 7' tall barbarian who could beat him up! My argument was that if the 7' tall meanie barbar was trying to whack him with his titanic battle axe, then poisoning him was ok as far as I was concerned. What they wanted to do is just be able to poison him, because he was in the same room with him and might, at some randomly determined future point, TRY to hit him with said axe. Maybe! Not only that, but he wanted it to be perfectly fine to do that, with no negative repercussions. They wanted to just walk into a bar, randomly poison total strangers and have it be fine. After, he tried to defend himself by saying he just wants to drug them, maybe weakening them or knocking them unconscious. THEN killing them afterwards with a different tool.

Cuz that makes it perfectly ok. Not premeditated murder, or evil in any way.

Then he tried to say that what adventurers do in every game by killing goblins and orcs was just the same. Not that, you know, usually in any decent game the adventurers are there to deal with some specific problem involving said goblins. Like them pillaging towns. Praying to ancient evil deities and summoning evil outsiders. Kidnapping children.

Because yeah, poisoning strangers is EXACTLY the same as killing a goblin tribe that is trying to bring about an invasion of demons and devils, or helping to conquer a country at the behest of dark powers of evil.

Totally the same thing.

I assume that you are capable of discerning sarcasm.

Zanathos wrote:

Again, you have departed from the point of the discussion.

Actually no. If you look back, you'll see that my position is that poison is just another weapon. Exactly the same point in the post you quoted.

No. It isn't. You stated that I don't want to be poisoned, and then implied that was the reason that I was posting. This, even though I've stated MULTIPLE times that I don't mind poison in the game but simply want limits put on it to prevent a powerful tool being abused by powergamers and the jerks that overwhelm any MMO's general populace.

How it was because of the macho jock attitude that prevails in the U.S. because it wasn't 'fighting fair'.

I'm pretty sure I haven't been limiting my arguments to the US. I used the word 'jock' because I though it would be understood by the majority of readers as meaning an attitude where the only way to settle disputes is a stand-up fight. Sorry if that was unclear to you.

Now your calling me stupid. Again, I made a specific reference toward stabbing people in the back or poisoning them in a situation thating and could be construed as self defense. I find your implication annoying and insulting.

Drug use and poison use have always been considered evil in D&D and in Pathfinder.

That is not an argument for why, that is just a statement that 'we do it that way because we've always done it that way'. If that sort of attitude prevailed, we would still have good clerics raising undead (1st Edition AD&D allowed Good clerics to Animate Dead with no penalty).

The game is set in the Pathfinder RPG setting. The fact that poison use is considered evil there absolutely IS pertinent to the discussion about a video game BASED on said world!

You aren't even RESPONDING to what I've said.

To be frank, I didn't respond directly to what you said because it was all over the place. You were trying to build an argument based on what happened in the real world, but then carried the argument into game-only concepts, thus neatly countering your own point. I could have brought it up at the time, but decided that it was better to let it go past unremarked.

My argument hits multiple points as I'm trying to make a point from multiple angles. Again, you attempting to use insults to make your point instead of coming up with a cogent argument.

I don't have a problem with poison being in the game. Poison has always been a part of D&D and Pathfinder. It should be in PFO. My issue with you're argument is that it isn't evil, and therefore there should be no consequences to it's use and with some of the ways you have suggested it be employed.

Not 'no consequence'. Not some software-triggered automatic label. I would expect there to be as much consequence for a poisoner drugging a PC in a tavern as there would be for a warrior stabbing one in the back....

You want poison to be in the game. You want to be free to use it with no repercussions to yourself. I find it quite amusing that you have spent most of your time accusing me of the very things you yourself are guilty of. I don't mind a discussion, but stop insulting me. Being a jerk to someone isn't a very good way to make your point or change their mind.

I am a Computer Science major, and eventually want to get involved in creating video games both from a programming and art angle. People not involved in the industry always seem to underestimate the portion of programmer time & art assets required for new animations and so on involved in this kind of thing. It makes up the majority of time for such a project, in actuality. While I really, really, REALLY want to see monks in PFO as soon as possible, there's a reason that they're saving them for last. The majority of the art and animations required for the monk will ONLY be used by a monk, whereas the other casting and fighting animations will be used by a MUCH larger percentage of the player base.

They're just trying to be efficient, to give us the most bang for the buck. With the buck being the donated Kickstarter money. I wish it were otherwise.

You don't want poison to be used on your character. Fair enough.

Will you advance me the same courtesy when I ask you not to use other weapons or spells on my character?

No. I doubt you would.

Poison is simply another weapon. One that you don't like, but one that is a perfectly legitimate weapon used by alchemists, herbalists and poisoners.

Hilarious. Again, you have departed from the point of the discussion. In your opening post, you discussed how you didn't understand why people thought of poison and drug use as evil. How it was because of the macho jock attitude that prevails in the U.S. because it wasn't 'fighting fair'. I've been refuting those points. Drug use and poison use have always been considered evil in D&D and in Pathfinder. At least, in the way you've described.

For the person who accused me of not being able to come up with a cogent argument, you are using the precisely same tactic to the hundredth power. You aren't even RESPONDING to what I've said. You're just lumping me into a corner that conveniently allows you to ignore what I've said without responding to any of it, or choosing tiny sections that you feel morally empowered to refute while ignoring the majority of it.

I don't have a problem with poison being in the game. Poison has always been a part of D&D and Pathfinder. It should be in PFO. My issue with you're argument is that it isn't evil, and therefore there should be no consequences to it's use and with some of the ways you have suggested it be employed.

Alchemists do just fine. Herbalists? There's no such thing. Poisoners? That would be rogues and assassins. Again, they have no problem taking care of themselves.

Poison is NOT just another weapon. It's an evil weapon, for all the reasons I've mentioned in the past and won't go over again. Using it is, for the most part, an evil act. It always has been, in the real world and in every D&D/Pathfinder world that I know of.

I've played on D2 and D3 Hardcore servers. Heck, I've played Path of Exile hardcore mode quite a bit. Lost a good number of characters too.

An MMO like PFO is WAY different. Gaining max level in D2, D3, or PoE is measured in days or weeks. In PFO, it's measured in years! Losing a hardcore D2 character was always rough, but I knew I could have another level 80+ whatever I wanted in a few days. Easily.

I'd be furious if something like what the OP described happened to me. ESPECIALLY in an open PvP world.

@OP: You describe this as a way to get rid of griefers... the problem with that is, the griefers would be able to do it, too. Do you REALLY want to give people, who by definition do things only to make others miserable, a tool like this?

Seriously?

If Permadeath's an option, eventually, on a different server or by choice then whatever, go right ahead. Otherwise, I think this is a really bad idea. Like, vampires that sparkle in the sun bad.

Seriously.

Zanathos wrote:

Full Plate wearers tossing around arcane spells and using sneak attack? Can't do it, because of keywords.

I just wanted to point out something that I think might be a minor misconception about what the keywords are likely to do.

I don't think it's the case that keywords will make it impossible to do these things. Rather, I think that the lack of appropriate keywords will make it ineffective.

So, you might well have a Full Plate-wearer casting arcane spells, but the lack of arcane spell keywords on his armor will mean that those spells are weak. And don't forget that the 6-action limitation means that the Full Plate-wearer is devoting 1/6th of his actions to an ability that is a "weak attack" at best.

Perhaps you're correct, but they easily COULD do so. Just look at arcane spell failure chances in 3.5 and Pathfinder. While a wizard or a sorcerer is able to cast spells while running around in full plate and carrying a tower shield, they simply don't. Why? Because there's a much better chance that the spell WON'T work than that it will. GW could easily put a similar mechanic in place to keep this under control. They could just as easily preclude their use at all. Excepting, of course, people have access to certain feats. Bard's and magus' both have class features that allow them to cast in armor without penalty.

I'm not sure I consider the 6 action limitation a salient point. Aren't we going to be able to have 3 different 'sets' of powers, dependent on what you had in hand? While we may only have 6 actions per set, I'd assume that anyone with warrior and wizard powers would have a different 'set' for each. My understanding was that, for instance with clerics, they'd have a set with their melee weapons, a set with their holy symbol and a third set of whatever.

Is my understanding of that faulty or has it been changed in some blog/Dev interview I haven't read/heard?

Zanathos wrote:

Why are you drugging them, then? You're still doing it BEFORE they've done anything to you.

Says who exactly? What if it is the guy that just robbed me on the road, or is the enemy of my settlement?

You assume far too much in assuming I am promoting random poisoning for s@@#s and giggles.

Zanathos wrote:

I hate to bring real life into it, but is it ok for someone in real life to drug someone's drink in order to steal from them or take advantage of them in other ways?

Best not try to bring real life into things in a fantasy game, it never ends well. Unless you also think that it is acceptable to go killing members of other sentient races and stealing their stuff.

Zanathos wrote:

Don't try to justify these kinds of actions. It's evil.

When someone says "don't try to justify X", I automatically think they can't debate the case. It's the same as saying, "I'm right and you're wrong and I can't hear your opposing argument, lahlahlah."

I assume that you have no problem with casting spells at people, hitting them with blades, or summoning animals to rip them to shreds? Did that goblin actually do anything to you? Has it come up and attacked you? Or, more likely, have you sought it out to slaughter it and its friends because goblins have been bad in the past?

Premeditated genocide because of your species/racial prejudices? And you are arguing that drugging an enemy in a bar to reduce his effectiveness is one of the most evil things you can do?

You are making assumptions, now, sir. Goblins and most other of the 'monstrous humanoid' races are treated in the Pathfinder world the same way we treat rabid animals in the real world. They're a horrible persistent threat, and will kill humans, elves, dwarves, etc. on site. They slaughter villages, steal children, and are regularly the servants of the true powers of evil. It has nothing to do with 'prejudices' in Golarion. They are evil. Really, truly evil. In Golarion, there is no such thing as political correctness. Good and evil are real, and has palpable and physical manifestations. While there may be some room for grey areas, there is MUCH more black and white.

Whether or not hitting people(whatever race they are), casting spells at them, etc. is good or evil can be pretty easily summed up in Golarion. Where you defending yourself(or someone else) from an attack? If yes, then the powers of good are ok with it. If no, were they evil and doing evil stuff? If yes to that part, then the powers of good are again ok with it. Being evil doesn't give good guys justification to just walk up and start killing.

You are using circular arguments, and completely ignoring the main thrust of my points in order to attempt to 'win' the argument. You are pointing out racial differences that are inherently part of the backstory of the Pathfinder world, and using it as a justification for doing things on a personal basis. There is all the difference in Golarion between adventuring parties hunting down goblin, orc, kobold, ogre, etc., tribes and eliminating them and someone poisoning or drugging an individual in a bar as you were suggesting should be done. The monstrous humanoids present an imminent and real threat in Golarion, and even then in most adventures I've played in, these creatures have to do something specific to be hunted down. This, even though with them it's not a matter of IF they will attack civilized areas and settlements, but merely when. Read the creatures descriptions. Read the background of the world.

Drugging or poisoning someone who just robbed you on the road is a huge departure from what you've discussed in the past. I even left that open... I said that in cases of self defense I think that it's... less wrong. I am, however, assuming that you've played an MMO before. Things like this cannot be put in without thinking about the worse case scenario for it's use - because that IS how it will be used. Putting in the ability to drug people in taverns, bars and restaurants will have one of two outcomes. The first is that for a while, there will be tons of people getting poisoned and drugged in these places... mostly new players to the game who don't know enough to avoid it. The second is that no one will go to these types of places after a while, unless it's required somehow, because they don't want to get drugged/poisoned!

Let poison/drug use be a tactical/strategic part of settlement warfare. Let it be used in combat by rogues and assassins. Anything else is just going to end up being not fun for the majority of players, or EVERYONE who can will learn to do it. Players will go to ridiculous lengths for small advantages in MMO's. What you're suggesting wouldn't be a small advantage, and if it's not considered 'evil' then everyone will be doing it - or at least all the power gamers/rules lawyers. I'd just as soon not have that in PFO.

Not kill - drug. There is a big difference. I've said I am not in favour of the old Gygax method of 'save or die'. What I would prefer is a reduction to stats or some other disability.

Yes, it is not fun being poisoned, but neither is it going to be fun be hit with all those swords, spells and other hindering effects. People can defend against poisons and drugs - that's what a saving throw is for. If you hit me with a sword then I 'save' with my AC, if I 'hit' you with poison then you save using Fortitude (or the PFO equivalent).

Why are you drugging them, then? You're still doing it BEFORE they've done anything to you. It's still premeditated violence. You're either doing it so they are less able to defend themselves WHILE you kill them OR so that you can blackmail them into doing something or giving something to you.

I still say that it's evil to drug or poison someone under these kinds of circumstances. I hate to bring real life into it, but is it ok for someone in real life to drug someone's drink in order to steal from them or take advantage of them in other ways? Of course not. I can get more visceral to make my point, but I think it's been made. Using drugs OR poison, without that person's permission, can never be looked at as self defense - unless it's on a weapon that is being used in a situation that can already be called self defense. It has to be premeditated, i.e. you are injuring a person when they cannot defend themselves and likely without any real provocation... which is fine if you're an assassin or a bandit who wants to take out a strong target with little or no resistance. I'm not arguing that drugs shouldn't be in the game, just that it needs to be limited in some pretty major ways. A good poisoner can take out armies by themselves. That's not something I want in a game I play for fun.

Don't try to justify these kinds of actions. It's evil. In real life, it's one of the most evil acts there is. In a fantasy world where good and evil are tangible, perceivable things it is just as evil if not even more so. It's not about macho, jock attitudes. If someone is going to kill you and your family, and you stick a knife in their back when the chance presents itself you would never get in trouble with the law. If instead of stabbing them, you poisoned them when they asked for a cup of coffee I still don't think you'd get in trouble. Poisoning someone because, in a room full of big brawny people with pointy and sharp objects, that one looked at you funny? Or said something mean to you? Or because you want his stuff? Or because someone ELSE wants his stuff?

How can you deny that's evil? I don't see any way in which, in a MMO gaming context, you can apply the drugs or poisons you're asking for and have it be anything other than awfully, abysmally, evil.

I think that the keyword system is GW's answer to a LOT of the problems with such an open system. Full Plate wearers tossing around arcane spells and using sneak attack? Can't do it, because of keywords. Monk's getting benefit of all their crazy defenses and wearing heavy armor? Or using ki powered attacks while using a scythe? Can't happen, because of keywords.

GW has the ability to keep alot of really abusive things out of the game. Not only thatm but they easily have the knobs to twist and levers to pull to keep ridiculous OP stuff under control quite easily. Certain combinations, not really meant to be used together, causing problems? Make it so they cannot be, be requiring them to have keywords on certain pieces of gear that can NOT be used at the same time. If they don't want to be so heavy handed with it, they can just drastically(or however much is appropriate) reduce the power of the ability UNLESS it has that keyword.

I'm glad to see that others are as interested as I am in seeing the monk done well!

I don't know about the evil-aligned stricture. I know that RPGs have traditionally labelled any poison use as automatically evil, but why? Is it more evil to kill someone with poison than by stabbing them? Combat is all well and good, but what if your target is a 6'2" evil barbarian and you are a wizened old crone or pimply youth? You are simply fighting using your own weapons - he uses an axe and you use poison. Both are damaging and both are eminently survivable (the axe by having better combat skills, the poison by making a saving throw).

The Good Clerics regularly use spells that could easily be reproduced by poison and drug effects (Zone of Truth is sodium pentothal, Blindness/Deafness could easily be a mind-affecting poison and Command is just scary in its mind-controlling effect), so why is poison and drug use evil but clerical magic good?

I suppose the traditional antipathy against poison is the underhand nature of it. This is very much the (to use a US expression) 'jock' view - if you want to fight then come and do it toe-to-toe with fists. That's great if you are a combat monster, not so great if you make a living binding books. There's a reason poison was seen, and not in a derogatory sense, as a woman's weapon historically.

I would certainly suggest that Good characters think twice before using poison, but I would have no issues with any real restriction...

It's the premeditation that makes it evil, in my eyes. It's the difference in our justice system between murder, manslaughter and self defense. Intentionally poisoning someone can be construed as nothing but premeditated murder, and thus an evil act. Getting your axe, walking over to you archnemesis house and sticking it in his face is just as premeditated and just as evil. You can't poison someone by putting poison in their food/drink on accident. You may put it in the WRONG person's food or drink, or you may accidentally put the lethal poison instead of the knockout drug, but the point is that even then, you're doing something nefarious in the first place.

Not all clerical magic is good, BTW. If a GM is running a game the way they SHOULD, then controlling people, forcing them to tell the truth, or blinding/deafening them should be construed as wrong or evil acts. If a good aligned cleric does this kind of thing for selfish or nefarious reasons, it SHOULD be considered an evil act and the GM should take their powers from them until they Atone!

Poison use on a weapon, used in self defense is a grey area. It has negative connotations because even a scratch in a bar brawl leads to almost certain death in most cases(with normal people). I very well might agree that this is not an innately evil act, but even this is very close to it. Premeditated murder always is evil though. The method doesn't matter. If you can stick cyanide in someone's beer, you can figure out another way around it.

Personally, I'd prefer if PFO stuck to player's being able to use it on their weapons and in settlement warfare, i.e. use it to poison the NPC's that work for the settlement. Being able to poison and kill people in a way they can't defend themselves from is not fun gameplay for the people on the receiving end of it. I sincerely hope that stays out of the game.

I am glad that this has been aired. I've said quite a bit about it in other posts on these boards, so this may... linger for a while. :)

Short version goes like this. Everything from tabletop, ESPECIALLY the Qinggong monk and Style feats.

Longer version... to me, a monk is supposed to be an unarmed martial artist. Certainly, they can fight with weapons and at lower levels this is functionally important. Except for theme, however, a higher level monk should always fight unarmed. Therefore, a system that allows for a monk to fight so that he APPEARS to fight unarmed is important. Call a monk's unarmed weapon whatever you wish - I understand that for balance reasons it's important that they use one.

A monk also should be blindingly fast. Monks at high levels move from three to four times faster than most of his adventuring commpanions, can leap amazing distances with minimal effort and are easily able to avoid area effect attacks. Also, Abundant Step is very important to them as well! Their specialized melee attacks(Stunning Fist, Elemental Fist, and Punishing Kick) are all important feats that give a monk abilities to do things that simultaneously set them apart from other melee fighters AND make them the threat they are to casters, most especially.

Their ability to ignore poison and diseases are also iconic to the class. These are abilities that many players and GM's discount, but I can recount any number of times when they have saved my character's lives AND the party's bacon, as well. While on the subject, Diamond Soul, the monk's lvl 13 innate Spell Resistance HAS to be in PFO. At higher levels, a monk's job is generally to run(or Abundant Step!) as fast as they can to the enemy's spell casters(who by 13th or 14th level are the biggest threat to the group, by far) and neutralize them. Without Spell Resistance, their high saves and Evasion/Imp. Evasion, they simply cannot do these things effectively.

From Ultimate Magic, the Qinggong monk is what allows most people who have fantasized about their monks throwing fireballs, running on walls and bouncing swords off their chests to finally fulfill them. I'm not crazy about the feats that they give you access to, but the spell like abilities that it gives you are really neat. Sure, you can just level up as a caster to imitate this, but the point is to do it with ki and based off of the other cool things you can already do.

Finally, Style Feats are the most amazing thing that has been done for the monk since... ever. They are powerful, game changing, and really REALLY cool!

I realize that this is a lot of stuff to ask for, and that it may have to come in waves, but I really won't be happy unless my monk can look like he's running around in street clothes, unarmed, and kicking the snotola out of bad guys just like that. I'd love to see some kind of representation of most of the alternate advancement paths available, as well, but that's just gravy. The most important stuff to me is to get the core class monk right, add in the stuff from the Qingong monk, and the style feats. Oh yeah, make sure Stunning Fist, Elemental Fist and Punishing Kick are in there and done properly.

Get those things in there and I will be ecstatically happy. Everything else will be gravy. I know it's asking a lot. With these grounds covered though, you'll have a very interesting class with a lot of depth.

While I agree that everyone should be given a set of 'generic' skills, i.e Attack, Block, Parry, Dodge, Sprint, etc., I will be very annoyed if we aren't given the ability to have a few of the starting skills for the archetype we want to be in. If I'm a cleric, I should be able to cast a healing spell as soon as I enter the game from character creation. At the very least, I should be able to do so after a short tutorial. Same thing goes for the other classes, too.

A 'n00b island' similar to what DDO has right now would be a good way to get people started, explain the starting cities and factions as well as let people try out the different types of jobs/professions/classes.

Will a brand new player make worse choices than one who is experienced at playing the game? Certainly, without any doubt. However, considering that everyone is a brand new player at some point AND the fact that there will be such a large amount of content added after EE and even after OE starts, I don't see that being any kind of a limiting factor at all. What's an 'efficient' way of spending points at the beginning of EE might not even be in the game at the start of OE.

I don't see the problem with this... as long as everyone gets the same number of points.

Kord_Avatar wrote:

It's good damage, but it's not RELIABLE damage.

Precisely this.

There have been a multitude of statistical analysis done on melee damage outputs, and a TWF Rogue using SA equals a two handed critical warrior IF he hits every single time and gets SA every single time.

They're great, but it is not reliable.

I've had this discussion, at length, and similar ones involving other classes multiple times with multiple people. Preconceptions are difficult to change. Let's just say that I've had different experiences with rogues as a player and a GM and leave it at that.

Do rogues have some limitations? Certainly. A good player can easily circumvent them with the right choices of gear, feats, alternate advancement paths, and just good old fashioned smart game play. I've never been terribly impressed with 2 handed crit warriors and wizards. Warriors don't have the utility I like in characters(monks ARE my favorite class, followed by rogues and rangers) and wizards are pretty easily neutralized by any GM/player who decides to do so.

Anyway, I doubt that anything I say will really change people's minds about this. Tabletop isn't really the subject here, it's PFO and other MMO rogues. I hope GW goes away from the WoW-clone version of rogues in PFO, allowing the neat stuff that attracts most people to them in the 1st place(stealth, trap finding/disarming/creation/placement, pikcpocketing, lockpicking, and swashbuckling derring-do shennanigans) can be placed into PFO in a way to make them fun, valuable, and interesting without making them an unfair burden on players.

Zanathos wrote:

Kord_Avatar wrote:

Finally, woe on the poor Rogue that crosses an Elemental/Ooze/Swarm...those things have "I HATE YOUR CLASS" on their (non exsisting) faces due their immunities.

To be fair, those things hate everyone equally... especially the swarms. Also, it requires a number of feats and a successful bluff check, but there are ways to be able to get a sneak attack every single round in melee. Even to get you full round action of attacks every melee without worrying about flanking/flatfooted. You'll probably be 7th or 8th level before you have full access to it in Pathfinder, but it IS possible... it will require most of your feats to get there, but it turns a rogue into a pretty nasty combat monster.

Sure, but while Fighter & Barbarian buddies can still smack those immunities with raw damage (power attack, high str scores), Rogue will look at his 1D6+2 shortsword damage and cry on a corner.

Yes, i'm aware that with a certain combination of feat/spells you MAY turn a rogue into an awesome damage machine...but remember: It's a SITUATIONAL awesome damage machine, is negated by a low level class feature (Uncanny Dodge), spells (anything that gives the enemy concealment, reveals your invisibility, etc), magic items (fortification)...and that's asuming you are ABLE to hit with your 3/4 BAB in the first place!

Talents are great in the sense that they let you do some interesting stuff in combat (bleed the enemy, penalize him, negate his AoO etc) and give the character somemething unique instead of "hitting the bad guy's hitpoins". Still, most of them require a sneak attack to be activated and suffer the same limitations mentioned above.
Not-Combat talents are kinda 'meh', though some of them might be usefull on a particular game.

The fun and joy of playing a Rogue is playing the character that has that particular skill, item or tactic that the rest of the party has neglected (possibily turning the tables in that combat or give a new direction on how to deal...

Well, it sounds like this is a personal thing for you, but let's be honest... the majority of every classes damage can be said to be situational. Melee fighter? Relies on crit or power attack for the majority of their damage. Crits are always situational(need to roll a certain number on the dice) and power attack is as well(can't reasonably use it again enemies with decently high AC's). Casters are situational as well. They can't cast spells in melee combat or risk attacks of opportunity and the lose of the spell unless they make a Concentration check. Even then, there are feats that conditionally allow melee classes to get around that.

It really isn't that hard to flank an enemy. Also, uncanny dodge doesn't make you immune to sneak attack. It makes you immune to being flat-footed...and not against a rogue 4 levels higher than you, so taking a few levels of a class just for that is useless against a full rogue. You can still flank them to sneak attack someone with Uncanny Dodge. Improved Uncanny Dodge makes you immune to flanking too, but again, not against a rogue 4 levels higher than you. I.U.D. is a 10th lvl(at least) talent. I might have those backwards... it's been a while since I played a rogue.

All that being said, an average 9th level rogue, dual wielding can do 20d6 + 4d8 + (weapon bonus*4) + (stat and other damage bonuses * 4) in a single round of combat... just by flanking that opponent with a buddy.

EASILY over 100 points of damage. On average! In 1 round. Without crits.

A 19th lvl rogue is going to do over 300 points of damage a round... on average, when he can backstab - 60d6, while dual wielding - just the sneak attack damage. Probably closer to 400 or 450, really, with the greatly improved gear they should have. No crits, nothing tricky. Just flank or go first. No other class can do that. Not even close.

How are rogues weak again? No other class can put out the potential, sustained damage a rogue can. That's not even using anything unusual, just average every day vanilla core class rogue. With the right feats and alternate advancement paths, that goes up a lot.

Cry me a river about how underpowered a rogue is. Sure, his damage is situational. If it wasn't, they'd be so out of control there'd be nothing you could possibly even consider doing other than completely rewriting the class and eliminating sneak attack entirely... or at least removing half to 2/3rds of it.

Finally, woe on the poor Rogue that crosses an Elemental/Ooze/Swarm...those things have "I HATE YOUR CLASS" on their (non exsisting) faces due their immunities.

To be fair, those things hate everyone equally... especially the swarms. Also, it requires a number of feats and a successful bluff check, but there are ways to be able to get a sneak attack every single round in melee. Even to get you full round action of attacks every melee without worrying about flanking/flatfooted. You'll probably be 7th or 8th level before you have full access to it in Pathfinder, but it IS possible... it will require most of your feats to get there, but it turns a rogue into a pretty nasty combat monster.

Aeioun Plainsweed wrote:

To create different kinds of AI to different kinds of monsters in depth is important. Some monsters could react to player gear and different kinds of damage should be taken into account.

You realize this isn't a WoW clone, right?

Zanathos wrote:

Party then pulls Bob.
"Joe! Help! JOE! They're killing me!'
'Sorry, Fred. I gotta just stand here and stare at the wall remember?

And it certainly isn't an EQ1 clone.

Most of the challenging content will come from other players. PFO has more in common with Eve, except the team isn't entirely hands-off and willing to let the community race to the bottom of the cesspool. Or for fantasy, it might be more like pre-facet UO, but with some rules to keep it from devolving into complete 'Lord of the Flies' insanity.

There will be monsters and such (occasionally played by devs and alpha-pledgers) but they're mostly mobile environmental hazards, not the main point of the game. Conflict with other players needn't be violent all the time, either.

I think you are drastically understating(or underestimating, at least) how important NPC critters will be to the game. In several of the blogs, we've been told that NPC monsters will be a major source of raw materials for use in crafting. Not the only one, certainly, but my understanding was that we'd get things from NPC monsters that couldn't be harvested. Making an undead bane sword? You need stuff from various undead critters to make it... and so on.

So yeah, NPC AI is important.

Monster tracking could be abstracted to point you to spawn areas of specified monster type so when you select "track goblins" you get an arrow pointing you towards their (randomly placed) tent.

EDIT: Did EQ tracking worked like that?

No. It merely gave you(if you were a high enough level ranger) a list of all NPC's and PC's in the zone, and then basically a compass pointer to show you towards the one you chose to track. It's close to the same, but not precisely. The effect is similar however, I suppose. :)