ZenPagan's page

Good play Pagan and Steelwing. You stepped down well before the game monetized but the TEO spy angle worked perfectly. My inbox was blowing up with accusations, almost all pointed at Areks.

Charlie I enjoyed my time in Pax thanks to all of you and I enjoyed immensely all the games I played with you all such as lotro, tsw and I even hope I helped you all enjoy Eve though that was a problem not to appear to know to much:)

I am sorry I afflicted your inbox on you but at the time I was just doing the job I was here to do. Hopefully you will forgive that as there was no animosity behind it merely playing the meta game.

The reason I agreed to be outed was not to embarrass Pax but because while I no longer feel this is a game for me I would like it to succeed and I wanted to illustrate the lengths people will actually go to for success. The community should look at it as a wakeup call. If the game is successful people will come that will play the metagame just as fast and hard as we have if not more. Especially when you consider we did this not even being sure we would end up playing

If that is your definition of Meaningful Human Interaction, Mr Dancey, then I feel like I may no longer wish to support Pathfinder Online. An abdication of responsibility is *not* effective leadership. If your system of justice will be based on mob rule, then there *is* no justice and this game will fail to attract anything but the organizations you so detest.

I was about to say much the same thing.

You are seriously telling us you wanted 15 pages of back and forth with the same participants getting more and more hot under the collar with each other?

Could I point out this bit at the bottom of the forum

"The most important rule: Don't be a jerk. We want our messageboards
to be a fun and friendly place."

The corollary to this surely is "Do not encourage people to be a jerk" I would suggest Paizo may wish to add it as it is obvious there a certain CEO's that can't follow the unwritten rule unless it is spelt out to them

Ok I haven't been around for a while as I decided to withdraw from Pathfinder early enrollment and take a wait and see approach to how the game was looking a few months after launch. Due to that I haven't really be bothering to watch these forums. Being on teamspeak for other games however with some of the PfO people I have picked up some of what was happening so decided to come take a look. Having looked I have decided to comment a bit.

First of all claiming Golgotha has only been around since August 2013 is complete and utter tosh. Golgotha the name itself has only been around since then but the organisations making up Golgotha have been around for a lot longer. Indeed Maelstrom who make a sizeable component of Golgotha are even mentioned on the Landrush. I know all this because I was the Aeternum diplomat for quite a while and was in contact with all the groups that now make Golgotha prior even to the discussion they had about a potential alliance with TEO. When those alliance talks fell through the three groups decided to merge themselves into one identity known as Golgotha. Golgotha therefore was always an entity in its own right and merely did as Ryan Dancey advised and forged alliances to form Golgotha.

Second the Pax structure. Yes both Golgotha and Aeternum are Pax divisions. That does not automatically mean they will not fight nor that they will cooperate. The leadership of Golgotha has no power over the members of Aeternum and vice versa. Should a dispute between the divisions occur it will be ruled upon by the Inner Sanctum (the pax council)...however and this is a big however this would not involve in game disputes which the inner sanctum would rightly ignore....this is about out of game things such as racism, breach of codes of conduct. You will notice there is nothing in the Pax charter saying Pax guilds must cooperate in game merely that they should not damage Pax. Some are trying to read into that article that it relates to not attacking each other in game. It doesn't I can assure you. Having said that Golgotha and Aeternum decided to form a kingdom between themselves. Kingdoms are part of the game. They did this before anything was known about the new landrush, once again following Ryans admonition to build a better big town to resist the onslaught of the open enrollers. If they had know the new land rush rules they may well have decided not to form a nation and Golgotha not to join Pax. Or alternatively they may have decided to just not announce their plans to form a kingdom an Golgotha to become a Pax division. Either way would have fallen within this spirit of these rules you keep harping on about. The crime here seems to be not what they did but the fact they let you know they were doing it and did so transparently. I am sure there are plenty of done deals that have been kept quiet that will be just as dangerous to the small groups as Pax.

Thirdly these landrush votes are shaping the political landscape of the initial phase of the game. Everyone who spent the 100$ should be entitled to have their vote count towards shaping that landscape. What you are effectively doing is saying to Golgotha's hey your vote is now worthless and you have to be part of a settlement that you never intended to be part of. Sorry guys they shelled out as much money as you, they are entitled to cast their vote same as you for the settlement they wish to be part of. They have both given an undertaking that only people who want to be part of Golgotha will vote for it that should be enough. Pax has given as much to this community as most people and in many cases more than a lot of groups and they have been repeatedly vilified and slandered.

Fourthly: Apportion blame for this fiasco squarely where it belongs on Ryan Dancey's shoulders. He was the one who gave us the half baked initial landrush where people were on an honour system a system that was abused either by mistake or on purpose. It was he who changed the rules on people halfway through the competition. It was he who failed in his ability to give clear instructions and it was he who sat back and watched a communtiy tear itself in half over this issue when he could have stepped in at an early stage and made a precise statement of what rules he wanted to apply. Instead he chose to be wishy washy and not take a stance and now we have 15 pages of bile ridden invective.

Speculating on formation warfare, especially when we have had so little information on it except that there is this concept called formation warfare may be previous.

Perhaps to sound a note of caution it may be worth waiting for some sort of blog before we assume it will allow us to lay waste to hordes and leap tall buildings in a single bound.

Jazzlvraz wrote:

Wurner wrote:

Any character has access to all her money all the time but is never carrying it on her person, thus not going to lose it upon death.

Thus it's an excellent argument against SADs being in coin; one could never "reverse" the transaction upon bandit-death, if necessity forces you to pay and your friends catch up to them as little as a few minutes later. It'll be bad enough that bandit-death destroys a significant percentage of the payment, but coin would guarantee 100% loss.

If bandits can only get items through SADs it would discourage small-time, independent bandits since I imagine they would have trouble finding a buyer for 100 stolen axe-handles. I guess they could salvage the axe handles for wood and then sell that but that would mean a bandit spends 5% of his time ambushing and 95% salvaging (which may require skills), transporting goods and playing the market. That's not how I envision the bandit life.

Unless you are part of a sponsored bandit group belonging to a settlement or kingdom. Then SADs would be very usable as a means to weaken enemy settlements or to stock up on cheap goods in your own settlement.

I'm all for sponsored bandit groups but I'd hate to see independent banditry being too much of a hassle to bother with.

A small time independent bandit shouldn't be ambushing and looting what he can't get rid of. A hideout will give you access to some information about what the merchant may be carrying. I would expect bandits to look and go "Axe handles? Pah no use maybe we should wait for the next caravan"

Why in addition would bandits be able to only get items with SAD's? They can visit a market and buy the stuff they have been unable to rob.

As to Bluddwolf's suggestion about goods being turned into coin at the hideout frankly a poor idea. The game should have no npc vendor's you can sell things to because it directly impacts on the whole economy by placing a floor on the price of some goods.

Axe handles price have been dropping like a stone....no worries just pm your nearest friendly bandit to goto the npc vendor for you. He gets reputation for the sad and you get more coin than the current market price.

Pax Pagan wrote:

A successful SAD causes no damage nor does it remove any items from circulation by their being destroyed. In many cases the bandits will even disrupt the market by undercutting in order to shift their ill gotten gains more quickly.

I don't think it has been stated whether SADs will be for goods, coin or both.

I still think coin would be the best way to go, or possibly a trade window where the merchant can place both coin and items until the bandit is satisfied. (But in that case I think most bandits will demand only coin anyway so it would be implemented for nothing)

Regardless of whether the SAD is for coin or money it causes nothing to leave the system. Merchants are only advantaged when goods are actually destroyed.

SAD being for money is what bandits would love, nothing to transport when making a getaway and it can't be recovered from them even if you catch up to them.

First of all a happy new year all and as I am heading out for a party after I post this I wont be responding till tomorrow :)

A lot has been said about SAD from the bandits side and the I am good and want to help out side. Time now for a merchants perspective.

I am not really wanting to talk strangely enough about the mechanics but the consequences and the reason I am posting it is to make my fellow merchants think about the SAD consequences more deeply.

here is the kicker for my thinking

A successful SAD, while good for an individual merchant on that one occasion is not good for merchants on the whole! Surprised? You shouldn't be it is simple economics.

Merchants make money by selling items or repairing items. The scarcer the item the more profit that can be made.

A successful SAD causes no damage nor does it remove any items from circulation by their being destroyed. In many cases the bandits will even disrupt the market by undercutting in order to shift their ill gotten gains more quickly.

While painful for the individual merchant at the time making them kill and loot you has the following effects. It removes 25% of the goods from the economy totally therefore inflating the prices a little due to scarcity. Attacking and killing uses consumables again removing them from the economy. Item wear also needs repair bringing us more money.

If prices start to rise in settlements due to banditry you can also be sure those settlements are going to notice and they will then take steps to eliminate the problem.

In the long run I believe we as merchants gain more by saying no to SAD's than we do by kowtowing to bandit tyranny. This then is a call to arms for merchants everywhere. JUST SAY NO!!! Our reward will be higher prices and laughter as the settlements drive the unwashed from the trade routes

Subdual cannot be at the choice of the one winning the fight. I as a merchant will not be able to fight back easily while at first glance subdual seems something I would want it is only at first glance.

I am killed and looted...I respawn at town where I have access to everything I need to reequip.

I am subdued and looted I am now stuck in the middle of nowhere and have to travel to go reequip.

The only person subdual benefits is the person who doesn't want to get the evil hit for killing. It does nothing for victims whatsoever. You want to attack me fine learn to love the evil shift don't start telling me though that I have to accept being left ill equipped in the middle of nowhere so you get reduced penalties

If there is no suitable settlement to join, then my company is going to have to head to the frontier and start again - and we'll be competing with raw new players. So in a way, it's probably a good design to have my powers cropped for a while - providing some balance on the frontier.

You are very much assuming here that there will always be new places to set up a settlement on the frontier. While Goblinworks havent said anything on the subject except that they do intend to expand the land mass from time to time I personally would expect them to keep the number of settlement hexes a far lower number than the number of player groups looking to set up a settlement.

The reason I think that way is that settlement conflict will be largely driven by scarcity of land and resources. If everyone who wanted to start a settlement could there would be no need for anyone to coalesce into larger groupings.

Liz Courts wrote:

...Walk away from the keyboard...

NEVER!! **charges back into the Paizo Forums waving his keyboard like a broad sword** =)

Sighs heavily as he digs out his diplomatic toolkit and readies to soothe over the ripples caused by his bosses keyboard wielding rampage muttering under his breath "I know I said use your keyboard when you need to send a message but that wasn't what I meant"

Pax Morbis wrote:

And as soon as the game shows the slightest bit of potential to turn into the next EvE in terms of competitiveness, anyone who was relevant before that point will be pushed out by others coming into the game with more experience and more people. The people who come before that will hold on through their time based mechanical advantage, but that will be eroded over time, and by my measure that won't save them for long.

I am curious about chartered companies; they will have the ability to move en masse from one settlement to another. Will the companies from early settlements be absorbed into the new settlements in OE?

This would be down to the settlement. There is certainly no onus on settlements to accept companies and indeed some companies may find that no one wants them.

I would imagine on the whole settlements will always be interested in recruiting those they consider decent companies. The divisive one will come however when a company is told we will accept your company but we don't want some of the players in it

As an addendum because rereading it I fear it came off as being negative when I didn't intend it to be.

What I said is what I believe has a good chance of happening which is

Players trying the game without full knowledge then bad mouthing it because the experience wasn't what they expected. It happens to virtually every game these days.

To combat this I think I would like to see

Goblinworks making a real effort to ensure newcomers know what they are getting into game wise before they enter EE

Goblinworks providing some sort of road map for introduction of missing features, not necessarily giving exact dates more an order of progression so people can make informed decisions about when they want to join EE

Goblinworks providing both of these and a clear concise vision of where they see the game going in a linkable format so that we can use them to counter the negativity that the game may garner on other forums.

I also think we as a community have to be aware of how we handle countering points, when I have read comments from game supporters on gamer sites from a neutral perspective I have often found that excessive zeal and fanboy style white knighting actually puts me off the game more than the negative comments of the nay sayers.

No game is perfect, this one will not be either. If we are honest and admit the flaws while pointing out what is being done to remove them then we will do more for promoting the game than by not admitting any flaws

All of the above is my personal opinion and does not reflect on anyone but myself

My predictions for EE are that the players that will actually be relevant throughout haven't appeared yet. I believe that the vast majority of the regulars on the boards right now will disappear about a month or two into EE (I tentatively include myself in that.) The culture that emerges from EE will do so organically, counter to anyones attempts mould it beforehand. I don't believe that anyone here will be happy with how the game develops mechanically, however that some people are better equipped than others to deal with that dissatisfaction.

And as soon as the game shows the slightest bit of potential to turn into the next EvE in terms of competitiveness, anyone who was relevant before that point will be pushed out by others coming into the game with more experience and more people. The people who come before that will hold on through their time based mechanical advantage, but that will be eroded over time, and by my measure that won't save them for long.

While I agree with most of what Morbis says above I would add an extra worry in.

During EE the game is going to be pretty sparse in implementation, yes I am aware it will improve during the period but even near OE we are only going to be starting to see the major systems such as settlements etc. The worry then is will the game be able to attract new blood during that time or will it be limited to the kickstarters and second chancers? A group which as Morbis notes we can expect to have a certain attrition rate during EE. I would not be surprised certainly to see a lot of negative press on other sites such as mmorpg from outsiders trying the game in EE and not appreciating its lack of systems.

Age of Conan is an example of a game that got hugely negative press, deservedly if we are honest, once that flood was out there it never recovered.

I know many will say 'but we expected MVP' yes kickstarters did. Joe Random hearing about the game and deciding to give it a try isn't necessarily going to do much more than read the What pathfinder is about blurb and not read widely enough to know about MVP all they will know is the game seems under developed and is charging them a full price sub.

Camelot Unchained Drakhan

Sitting in a chair and writing notes in a book or scroll seem so .... unimaginative.

I can't say that in close to 30 years of playing roleplaying games I've ever thought "the best part of that session was when I sat in a chair".

If you came to me in 1990 and said "imagine you're playing a shared world game with thousands of other people in a detailed 3D virtual fantasy world - tell me what you would want to be able to do in that world that would be meaningful to you as a way of developing your character" I can guarantee you "sit in a chair" was not going to be on the list.

Perhaps what people are telling you is they prefer to keep their imagination for the big things and think the small everyday things aren't what they should need to imagine

From what I'm seeing, it seems like most of the self-identified "Roleplayers" want commands and animations of a similar number and technological nature to the commands and animations available to PvP players, but with the meaningfulness of those actions not being server-mediated.

Am I mostly correct in that?

I don't think you are

The only animation I think rp'ers have asked for is sitting in a chair.

custom emotes I think most aren't expecting anymore than any game gives them which is a line of text coming up along the lines of

Pagan takes a long drag from his cigar.

I do expect the built in emotes may well have animations as well but they are generally no where near the complexity of combat animations and certainly the number of built in emotes doesn't have to be extensive at least to start with.

Frankly I do not understand the point of view of some here who are arguing that RP should not get any support because rp'ers can use their imagination. Surely that applies to PVP or PVE just as strongly and there is no need for combat animations at all as you can imagine your character swinging the sword and the resultant splatter of gore. All the game needs to do is let you indicate which skill you are using and tell you the result. This is patently a silly argument when applied to PVP or PVE and is just as silly when applied to RP.

The reason for the game to support animations to indicate what is happening for all three are the same. It aids immersion in the world and immersion in a believable world aids player retention.

I would be worried that a high rep character was played by someone who cared more about a rep score than doing what was necessary to make e Settlement safe, powerful and cohesive.

A player cares more for his own good than that of his settlement. That I believe is a direct statement that says the player lack altruism.

Altruim is no selfish behaviour. The bolded part says lacking altruism. How much more direct would you like him to be?

The statement from 1142 that you quoted says reputation measures the balance of altruism to selfishness. What it does not say is that altruism is at the high end of the scale. Taken with the quote I posted it seems to me the way to interpret quote 1142 is that either end of the rep scale denote selfishness and altruism is the space in the middle.

Text for macro's is a nice feature for more than rp, I have seen many raiders use them effectively over the years.

I would like to see company crests being possible whether badges, cloaks,blazons etc. And capturable war banners which can be displayed as trophies

Crafters need settlements far more than settlements need crafters. The settlement is providing the crafter far more than what the settlement is getting in return. I'm not saying the crafter offers nothing, just that they offer less than what they get.

There I would disagree with you Bludd, while it is true in Eve that is because you have a large high sec with a massive industrial base of characters happy to sit there and supply the needs of all the PVP'ers. Null sec alliances do not need industrial players and many dont have them at all because they can source everything they need from the high sec players. This will not be true in Pathfinder where all of the decent gear will be made in player settlements.

If most gathering and industrial work had to be done in null sec, industrialists in Eve would be in a lot stronger position in alliances there. That will be true in Pathfinder.

A settlement going to war may find that it has to rely totally on its own crafters and material stock piles during the war. Crafters will be hugely important and in my view certainly as important as an army.

Pax takes the view that strength is built on three pillars

Coin, Logistics , Military strength. None of those can stand independently

Being wrote:

I have to say I with you on this one Pagan.

I think that if a settlement member is online and in the settlement when it is attacked they should suffer at least a rep hit if they do not actively assist in the defense.

I don't know if that could rightly be automated, but even if the settlement citizenry has to vote to castigate some jerk who will not help then so be it.

I have no qualms at all with Settlements being able to and/or moving forward and enacting this policy/law for them. I do have a problem with this being forced upon any settlement through any non-opted automated system.

I dont believe anyone is calling for an automated system here we are merely discussing what settlements may expect of their members.

In general terms I think all settlements will look at player contributions in some fashion (not just in wartime) and use them to classify their citizens into categories which is likely to have some in game effect. This will vary greatly from settlement to settlement and is purely an agreement between those in the settlement it doesn't need any built in mechanic. It is down to each settlement to decide and enforce in the way they see fit.

An example would be if you have limited training slots for a skill and more people want to use them than can train at one time you may well prioritise on the basis of what each player contributes towards the settlement.

A player that plays mostly for themselves and doesn't do much to assist the settlement (whether PVP,PVE,Crafting or gathering) may often find themselves at the end of such queues. Indeed some players may even have a negative contribution to a settlement based upon the trouble they bring to a settlement by their action

@Nightdrifter

For the last time I am not insisting on being in combat. This is the statement I am making

Every citizen of the settlement should be prepared to give 100% in helping the settlement in its time of need.To do this every citizen should be prepared to do whatever is the optimum action at the current moment.

Do you disagree with that?

Then consider in the light of that

IF the optimum action the player can take at this moment in time is to pick up a sword even if they have poor combat skills then they should be prepared to do it even if it is only to act as a speed bump.

I really do not understand why you consider the above two statements controversial

Pax Pagan wrote:

(example incoming) a group was spending its time in a dungeon when we have an enemy at the city gate.

This example is outside of any argument that i'm making.

It was an extreme example denoting those (whether pve,pvp,crafter or gatherer) that will not contribute to settlement defense in any way shape or form but instead go about doing what they wish to do as if the attack is not happening, there will be some that do this I can assure you.

The disagreement between us appears to me to be this

I say a player should be prepared and expected to do whatever it is best for them to do to aid their settlement in times of extreme need and that if the best thing for a crafter to do is pick up a weapon they should be prepared to do so.

You appear to be saying a player should be prepared and expected to do whatever it is best for them to do to aid their settlement in times of extreme need except for picking up a weapon even if that is the best thing they could currently do to help.

@Papaver

While I hope crafting is a valuable part of both settlement defense and offense what I think people like Lhan are referring to is the end point.

The walls have fallen, the enemy are in the street and driving towards the town hall for the settlement capture. Frankly no crafting helps at this point the only thing that can be done is throw bodies in the way and hope to wear them down before they complete capture. This is when people are saying that crafters should be willing to use that smithing hammer against flesh and blood.

Will crafters doing this make a difference and stop the settlement capture? Probably not but occasionally they will buy enough time for the settlement to rally its defenses and it is better to try than not. I don't think people are thinking crafters should be regularly in hand to hand combat and I hope they do mainly have crafter style roles but I do believe repairing swords isnt much use when the enemy are battering down the walls of the forge.

I fully expect as a merchant and crafter to pick up a weapon when all else fails as I know when it comes down to it that my craft skills are no use without a settlement to craft in, nor are my merchant skills of much use when the enemy is in possession of all my stock in trade.

I don't actually think this is a crafter or pve or gatherer or pvp issue to be honest. I think what people have to realise is that when the chips are down their settlement will only prosper if in times of need they are willing to do what helps the settlement best. Successful settlements will be those who have inhabitants that accept that truth.

With all this talk of goons resurfacing I think it worth restating the Pax position so there can be no doubt in any ones minds.

Any group large or small who we believe come with the intention of ruining the game we in Pax will oppose and be more than happy to team up with the rest of the population to do so.

Any group large or small who we believe come with the intention of playing the game we will deal with in the same manner as we do any of the current EE groups.

We will judge groups coming to the game by what they do and say in game not by the reputation they carry from other games nor by what others think of those groups

Other groups are free to do as they choose on this matter but we in Pax gaming believe this is both a reasonable and fair position to take

Oh my! I'm a bit late but anyway congratulations on your first goon sleeper agent. xD

1) As far as I am aware we have no goon sleeper agents, nor would it profit the goons to plant a sleeper agent in our midst.

2) We in Pax aren't actually worried by the goons a lot of us have tangled with them in other games and know that their reputation is vastly overblown. The only way goons are going to effect us is if they join PfO 1000 strong. A sleeper agent will be neither here nor there as they will not be able to disband the alliance as they did to a group in Eve (Ryan said something along this lines)

3) If a goonswarm member applied to us it wouldn't effect their chance of recruitment as we look at people as individuals for application and do not tar them by the brush of association. I am sure that goonswarm have some perfectly good individuals in them despite the Mittani and some others being a bit of a "£%$£^%^$^ .

TLDR even if true we aren't concerned

I think that there is unlikely to be much settlement warfare purely on alignment grounds. War is a costly undertaking and for the majority of settlements it will be pursued for tangible reasons of benefit such as access to resources. Prevention of action by other settlements etc.

There may be some faction warfare along alignment lines but that is largely irrelevant pvp that changes absolutely nothing in the river kingdoms. There may also be some raiding done purely for rp reasons on alignment rivals I guess. My prediction though is that the vast majority of settlement warfare will be done for purely pragmatic gain. On that basis thinking of the alignments as the corners of a power structure in the rvr vein is not going to be true

Personally I'd expect a major trade hub to sprout up in one of the early settlements or the original NPC starter town. Whichever it is, as the available territory expands people will be used to it being the place to trade. Inertia will take over and it'll become PFO's Jita. More trade hubs will appear, but that inertia will count for a lot.

The empire has already plans to make that trade hub Callambea and we have many projects underway to make this happen ranging from getting UNC and the bloody hand on board to ensure that our lands are as safe for merchants and travellers as possible to the Aeternum Parcel Service to add convenience to your shopping needs. Will we succeed? Only time will tell all we can say is we are taking steps to make it happen

I would be concerned that the islands with gates design would lend itself too much to a large organisation being able to effectively claim the island for itself by gate camping.

Anything that eliminates the establishment of chokepoints of such magnitude is a net gain in my opinion

Bringslite wrote:

Nihimon wrote:

Pax Charlie George wrote:

It is common in some Eve alliances to value pvp over economic players.

Is that because "toxic PvP" is not discouraged?

I think it's important to keep in mind that being a Random Player Killer in PFO will still cause you to end up in a crappy Settlement with gimped abilities. Yes, I do believe it's very important to keep that in mind.

How does Pax Charlie's reply to my attempt at humor spark that response Nihimon? I am just curious. Is it tied into other things, up thread, that I missed?

It seems fairly straightforward to me.

1. Pax Charlie George made a statement about the relative value of PvP players versus "economic" players in EVE.
2. I wondered if that had something to do with the fact that EVE makes no effort to discourage toxic PvP.
3. Whenever I talk about EVE's lack of constraints on toxic PvP, I feel compelled to remind everyone that PFO will have significant constraints on toxic PvP.

In eve null sec alliances have no reason to value the industrial player for a simple reason. The best place to do industry is in high sec. Due to this null sec alliances have absolutely no need of industrial players as an integral part of their alliance, there will always be people building what they need in high sec. Indeed many alliances do not actually have industrial players in their ranks but instead have a high sec corp that houses them. It has absolutely nothing at all to do with PVP toxic or otherwise purely the way industry is set up in Eve

Pfo on the other hand is set up differently and we know because they have told us that the best crafting facilities will all be in player run settlements and npc crafting facilities will be at best rudimentary. Settlements will need crafters in their ranks in a way that null sec alliances don't

As a general note both on this and other threads

The empire is doing the community the courtesy of telling you what our plans are in fairly straight forward terms on any number of issues. A good example of this is the discussion on the other thread about not allowing foreign nationals to be vigilantes in our lands.

This folks is a courtesy. We are being open and honest and saying this is what we intend to do. This is a lot more than you are getting from most groups on the forums.

We are putting it out there to inform you we are not however putting it out there so you can nit pick the details, we will freely clarify our position if you are finding it is not as clear as we believe we have stated it but we are not going to change it because some people do not like the stance we have taken nor are we going to be anything other than amused by people trying to be rules lawyers down the line and quoting back something we said on the forum and claiming we haven't fulfilled the letter of it.

Empire policies will be decided between the people of the empire full stop

Bluddwolf wrote:

If a swarm of high rep, LG noobs are over harvesting the resources in your settlement and then they ship it all off to somewhere else. What will you do, if they don't listen to reason? What if they refuse to stop harvesting within your territory, to the detriment to your own harvesters?

Make harvesting without authorization a criminal action. They get flagged, you kill them, problem solved.

Ah I see....we object to random people committing vigilante murders in our territory and say we will make it unlawful and we are hauled over the coals for it and accused of acting in an evil manner.

You however wish to pass a law condemning that poor silvery haired grandmother to death because she has the temerity to wish to gather some firewood to warm her aging arthritic bones during the cold cruel months of winter and your settlement is a bastion of all that is good in the River kingdoms.

:)

Killing people within our lands for purpose of law enforcement will be only by duly accredited personnel. These will be mainly Empire people though we may be open for treaties with pragmatic kingdoms that we believe can be trusted to use hot pursuit and other such legal niceties in reasonable and measured ways.

If I were not going to concentrate on being a humble helpless merchant adrift in an ocean of bandits and self righteous knights who seek to impose their morality on a man merely trying to make an honest living.....

then my eye would probably be caught by the gunslinger as suiting a cigar smoking dwarf right down to the ground

While I am not going to comment either way on whether I think it is a good idea that cc members are allowed to kill each other in the name of practise I would point out that eve allows free killing of corp and fleet mates in high sec without concord (the high sec npc police) intervention for exactly the reason of practise.

While in Eve this is used for practise it is more often used for the purpose of Awoxing. This is when someone joins a corporation with the sole intent on getting as many concord free kills as humanly possible before someone gets online and manages to kick them from the corporation.

1) Eve has a lot of tools to help corporations stay safe from Awoxing even though a lot of corporations do not use them and get caught by the Awoxers. PfO will not as far as we know have these tools available for at best quite a while.

2) Awoxing I personally feel is a pretty cheap trick and while it can be used to make a profit I tend towards the feeling that it is more a griefing tool than anything. It should be noted that we have already had a notorious Eve Awoxer on these forums expressing an interest in PfO and playing in exactly that way. I believe it was Bludd amongst others that spent time persuading him that his playstyle would not be supported in PfO.

I would hope that it is only a lawful action if settlements allow it to be so Areks. The setting law aspects of settlements has as yet not be fleshed out but allowing bounty contracts would certainly be in my view a prime candidate. We certainly should be frowning on bounties being collected on our citizens when they have committed no crime in our lands and we have only the word of foreigners

If bounties are always lawful it is just one more flaw in the extensive litany of flaws embodied by the alignment and reputation system and a definite usurpation of settlement perogative

As a side not people are making the assumption that bounty hunting is going to be a lawful aligned occupation. Both in real life and in game I think this is a pretty dubious notion.

Certainly from a game point of view many settlements will frown upon people trying to collect bounties within their territories thus putting the bounty hunter very firmly in the criminal bracket if they continue to pursue their quarry.

(Note this should not be read as being the Pax position, once we have considered the issue and come to a decision as is our custom we will post that position in (hopefully) plain and unambigous language. If pressed my guess would be that we would probably accept bounty hunting by certain foreign groups negotiated as part of treaties and outlaw the rest.

Before the forum paladins jump in shout down this personal position they should bear it in mind that a bounty may be set (as far as our current knowledge goes) upon anyone who has initiated any for of unsanctioned PVP on you. Unsanctioned PVP however does not indicate with any accuracy whether the initiator is performing meaningful PVP or not nor does it distinguish between the initiator doing it as an actual agressor or as a preemptive strike to get the drop on know agressors. A good example of the latter is that I as a merchant set off up the road with my wagons and ten guards. I see the pant stealing bandits up the road and assessing the situation decide that as this notorious bandit group is undoubtedly going to try and SAD me that instead I will take them by surprise by asking my ten guards to jump them before they have prepared.

Technically I am guilty of a crime according to the system, frankly from an rp perspective it is very much an act of self defense against known bandits and I see no reason to cede them the first strike advantage

1 Can you provide a quote from the devs showing bounties will have a cost beyond that paid to the hunter.

2 While merchants are undoubtedly carrying more value than your target the bandit robbing the merchant does not get an additionaly payment from others. The lesson here is do not take cheapskate bounty contracts. Just as a merchant or bandit has to assess risk vs reward so too does the bounty hunter.

3 I would assume just as in Eve the bounty pool for an individual you are hunting may come from more than just one other player. For example it would not surprise me if certain unnamed bandits may have bounties placed on their head from a number of different sources

Bounty hunters will not in addition be being consistently hunted down whereas bandits will be having it done to them. For instance we in the empire will be exercising a zero tolerance policy to banditry within our lands and we will be actively seeking out bandit hideouts and destroying them. I fully expect many player settlements to be doing likewise therefore the bandit carries that extra risk on their shoulders.

By all means argue that SAD's and assassinations should be altered in their application

I have the following general objection to a lot of these systems.

The more complex the system the more coding time it takes.

The more coding time it takes the less coding time for other things that would be of more benefit to the game

The more complex the rules the more loopholes in the system and potentials for unexpected side effects which end up hurting those it was meant to help more than it helps them

The more complex the system the more it stifles player creativity and emergent game play.

The more complex the system the harder it is for new players to understand (The old Eve aggression rules being a prime example of this, compare them to the newly implemented rules which are both cleaner and tend to be much better at hitting the effect they were designed for)

I would prefer to see simple systems implemented for the start of EE and then revamped as needed during EE so they remain only as complex as absolutely necessary and no more

ZenPagan wrote:

It is the motivation of the initiator which determines meaningfulness not that of the one having it done to.

I'd hate to have you sitting as judge for an assault case. The intent of the perpetrator is largely irrelevant when assessing whether a crime was committed. That intent may be considered at sentencing, but not necessarily.

Except for two things

1) This is not about committing a crime it is obvious that the only person who knows whether they have a motive to kill the victim is the offender.

2) If you really want to drag real life into it yes intent is a huge part of deciding whether a crime has been committed it is what the whole point of "Mens rea" is about. mens rea

If you are happily mining ore in the woods and I come and kill you there is no way you can distinguish whether I killed you because

a) I am being a jerk and rpking
b) You are exploiting a resource that I wish to exploit myself
c) I wished to loot your corpse because I had noticed some of your equipment was quite nice
d) We have an operation happening in the area and all members were instructed to ensure there were no prying eyes to witness what we were up to
e) to z) other sundry reasons for killing you

Unless I happen to whisper you and let you know which of the reasons I killed you for you as the corpse have no way of telling. You therefore cannot ever be in a position to judge whether I had a reason to kill you or not.

If you are arguing that PVP interactions are only meaningful if the victim believes they are meaningful then you are arguing that for some people the game will contain no meaningful PVP at all. That position is patently codswallop

The point on kill stealing is the same as in eve null sec

PVE resources such as escalations are exactly that and will be jealously guarded. Try going into someones null sec system and running their anomalies even in an nrds system you will find the locals wanting a word with you at the end of a missile.

Settlements will want to ensure their pve inclined players have sufficient content in the settlement controlled hexes and will not be welcoming interlopers to join in the fun.

Note when I say settlement controlled hexes I am not talking about the ones in which the settlement can set the laws but the ones in which a settlement can bring sufficient force to bear to be considered the defacto owner

The point Nevy was making and one that several including myself have made in the past is that "unsanctioned" PVP does not equal random player killing or jerk behaviour necessarily.

In my view this is perfectly meaningful PVP done to secure a resource (in this case PVE mobs and escalations I believe will be jealously guarded and a source of being fought over :) )

His/her point was in addition that because the system classes it unsanctioned even though it is actually the sort of PVP we want that he/she would suffer a reputation hit and if there are punishments for low reputation handed out by the game then he/she may find themselves exposed to them despite not having partaken of jerk behaviour.

This sort of situation will not become one that ever becomes sanctioned in my view unless they make non controlled hexes ffa.

Before everyone leaps in and shouts feud I would point out I would fully expect feuds to have a notice period much as Eve war dec's do before they come into force. This is to prevent my group spotting your group and thinking "Aha a rich target we outnumber quick declare a feud and we can kill them without consequence"

In addition to the above debunking of why a feud won't work in this situation also consider feuds are at the chartered company level. Now consider this situation is more likely to be a small group than a single paladin. That small group may well belong to more than one chartered company. Even if you could declare an immediate feud you now have to declare it against several companies.

Thirdly to debunk the use of feuds for this situation, I would presume only one or two members of a company can declare a feud, influence is a valuable resource and I am sure you don't want it wasted

There should be absolutely no ability to mail items within game, mail should it exist at all should be restricted to text only missives between players. Allowing the mailing of items would so fundamentally break the market localism that is aimed for that it would negate the need to travel.

I am fully for the not selling anything at all that can be player crafted in the store. There is absolutely no need for it whatsoever and it impacts upon the player market in too many ways for it to be good. There are plenty of things that can be sold without having to stoop to competing with crafters.

Crafting and gathering are as valid a playstyle as pve or pvp and I am sure folk would be unhappy if for instance you could hire an assassin from the cash shop instead of a player or get a player shop bought party to deal with that escalation instead of hiring some brave player adventurers.

A cash shop competing with players in any sphere results in effectively placing a price cap on the item that players cannot charge more than. It really doesnt matter what the item is either the net effect can easily stop players crafting the item at all as they cannot make a profit on it.

A cash shop competing with players is also bad because if they want it to sell, and if they don't want it to sell why put it in the cash shop, then they have to make it attractive to buy. Making it attractive to buy means that at a minimum they need to compete either on price, effectiveness or convenience if not combinations of all. They have ruled out competing on effectiveness therefore they will either have to compete on price or convenience at a minimum. One is directly bad for crafters as it easily removes the ability to profit as already noted. The second is bad because it means that cash shop bought items will be available in ways that break the ability to starve a competitor of resources such as being able to purchase directly to back pack in the wilderness

Here is a question for you all, and hopefully a Dev might respond as well. It is my understanding that:

1. An NPC Starter Settlement is safest and limits training, both in scope and sequence. It's DI is static and therefore it can not grow beyond those limitations it began with.

2. A PC settlement with enough low rep citizens is more dangerous and limits training, in both scope and sequence. Its DI is dynamic, but its growth is limited by the choices of some of its citizens.

3. A second PC settlement with enough high rep citizens is less dangerous ( more limits on PvP) and limits training, in both scope and sequence. Its DI is dynamic, but its growth is limited by the choices of some of its citizens.

At what point is the limitations of two settlements, one low rep with wide open pvp windows and one high rep with limited PvP windows, equal?

* I'm using the term "Windows" to include all opportunities for PvP (Sanctioned).

My belief is, if a settlement limits sanctioned PvP within its borders, it should have a consequence or trade off for that in limiting its DI. Not as limited as the NPC Starter settlement, but not as unlimited as a settlement with a more open policy for sanctioned PvP.

TL; DR. Sanctioned PvP should not hurt the development index of a settlement. But, limiting sanctioned PvP should.

While a perfectly good question bludd may I suggest starting a thread on it so as not to derail a recruitment thread

@Urman

Belonging to a faction cannot confer any real bonus except for maybe cosmetics. If it does so then belonging to a faction becomes non optional. Especially if the bonus was what you suggest about DI's at which point you would have settlements dictating what factions they wanted people to belong to.

Factions should be an optional choice for players much as they are in Eve online then those who do not wish to partake in faction warfare (which many find meaningless) can ignore it without being gimped.

The moment you start rewarding anything whether it be race choice, faction choice or any other small part of the gameplay with bonus traits you will create a situation where 80% of the people belong to what is perceived to be the best min/max wise.

It happened in Eve when they had racial bonus's, it happened in Wow when they had racial bonus's. In short extra's being given for one particular play choice leads to everyone feeling they have to participate in that choice or fall behind

I think this debate missed the point entirely which is why I havent joined in

We want meaningful PVP.

We don't want pvp for the sake of it

some sanctioned PVP is pvp for the sake of it

some unsanctioned PVP is meaningful PVP

Therefore low reputation does not necessarily equate to negative play styles nor does high rep equate to positive play styles

I still think Hob's idea of building skins for settlements where each settlement can set up a fund and its members can chip in is an awesome idea. It pays for the artwork handily and doesn't cost any one person much while at the same time giving settlements distinctive looks

@Wurner the guards thing is already an intrinsic part of the contract system

Hideouts will signal when a caravan enters the area not when one sets off and will have limited range

The point of SAD being sanctioned and ambush not as under the current plans is they want to encourage SAD rather than ambush. I disagree with Bludds suggestion that ambush be equally sanctioned. (I have no objection to unsanctioned PVP and I fully expect it to be as prevalent as sanctioned PVP, and unsanctioned PVP in many cases will be more meaningful than sanctioned PVP such as faction warfare). If ambush becomes sanctioned PVP then SAD becomes largely redundant and I would see little reason for anyone to bother with it.

As to Caravans need to go on roads...why exactly? A wagon can be driven anywhere where there is space for it to pass. I would see this as being the main point of teamster style skills. Example teamster level 1 allows you to safely drive a wagon down a paved road. Teamster 2 a well packed dirt road, teamster 3 across grasslands etc

Most corps and alliances in Eve are pretty up front about such things as Fleet doctrines. You know before you join them that they expect you to be able to fly certain types of ship and fits. If you don't like it don't join then it is as simple as that.

What people need to remember and something I have said over and over in these pages is that guilds in a sandbox are not like guilds in a theme park game they actually matter a huge deal. You as a player cannot function efficiently without the support of your guild and your guild cannot function efficiently without your support.

In theme park guilds it doesn't really matter if you run off to far lands to hunt goblins rather than take part in some guild activity (The only activity where it may matter being raiding). Do so in a sandbox game like PfO and you may return to find your settlement a smoking ruin and all your valuables looted.

In short a guild is very much a team in a sandbox whereas in a theme park game it can quite happily be a bunch of solo players wearing a common tag. The team lives or dies by its members pulling together and just like any team game they sometimes require you to put the team interests before your own.

I think the larger advantage would be the ability to attack the low rep character in his own town without gaining a criminal flag, if it worked that way.

This should absolutely never the case. Player settlements set the laws they wish to. These laws should not be overridden by game mechanics. If a law is in place then you should get the criminal flag for breaking it with no exceptions.

Thanks for the quote I missed it somehow when I did a search. While I hate circle strafing I also have to say I hate auto facing just as much. It cuts off some of the options you have such as the initial surprise when they aren't quite sure where the attack came from when they automatically turn to face you. We can also assume then I guess that they won't be putting positional based attacks in game