Zodd Zerker's page

It was actually a more educational experience than I had expected :)
I am glad that we all had different weapons, so we could try out various tactics.

I had a great time, and not just because I was the last man standing...
muhahaha

Thanks for making this happen. I will definitely participate if you do another in the future.

I am there and ready to Brawl!

Parents:

Don't let your kids dress up as Goblins for Halloween.

This has been a public service announcement brought to you by Zodd

Here is a thread I started months ago to encourage folks that have done PvP to share some of their favorite experiences. As for me, my favorite PvP is for a greater purpose. Such as in Shadowbane to defend a city. I hope for similar experiences in PFO.

Great Player vs Player Moments

Lets call it like it is.

We be Drunks.

Thod, your predictions were spooky good haha.

Always enjoyable to read the words of someone grounded in reality.
Great post CB.

customer.support@goblinworks.com

Just don't expect a response until a reasonable hour for a GW employee to be awake, a.k.a. 10 AM Pacific Standard Time.

I think that it would keep to the Table Top version to require some skill in Perception to notice if you are being targeted by an assassin. It makes sense. If you want to be a high profile target, you better be ready to deal with the consequences. The Aristocrats give what I can only assume is a decent bonus to their settlement. They shouldn't be able to do that without any risk. Everything in PFO is about weighing risk and reward. So the risk part is that assassins will be gunning for you. I don't think you should know by default when you get the Being Observed status for the reasons already listed above. With the requiring a perception skill mechanic the worst case scenario is that an Aristocrat gets attacked while he feels safe and secure in his settlement. He gets attacked, not one-shot. If that is the worst case scenario for this mechanic, I don't see anything wrong with it and I see some nice things for assassins that it brings to the game.

Welcome to another installment of Loincloth Wednesdays!

Sorry for taking so long to get another one of these puppies posted.

Zodd touched his left arm for luck. A blood red tattoo of a bear claw was clearly visible on his well-muscled bicep. It was the symbol of the Stone Bear Clan, one that he wore proudly. Crouching behind the hill using the trees as concealment, Zodd waited with his fellow clan members. They were far from their home of Freevale and they needed to be careful not be seen until they wanted to be seen.

As he saw movement down the road the barbarian grinned. Finally, their patience would pay off. His companions noticed the wagon heading towards them as well and readied themselves. It looked like a merchant wagon with only two guards, easy prey. When the wagon got close enough Zodd didn’t need to say anything or signal his rage brothers, they knew when to pounce. He enjoyed feeling the air rush past as he sprinted down the hill toward the practically defenseless wagon, drawing his greatsword on the way. As usual he had went without any armor so that he could move freely and quickly, but since today was Wednesday he had taken it a step further and had stripped down to just a loincloth. He was glad to see that many of his companions had joined him in the proud tradition and ran toward the wagon wearing only loincloths. With so little to burden them, the barbarians were upon the guards before they could draw their weapons.

Before Zodd had a chance to demand they disarm and hand over their goods, he saw to his surprise a group of men arriving from the other side of the road. Many of them had worn cloaks and mean looking weapons. Their ugly and unkempt faces clearly marked them as bandits. Apparently his band of barbarians were not the only predators that saw this spot of the road as a good place for an ambush. The merchant guards kept their hands in the air and watched as the barbarians and bandits eyed each other warily.

Zodd spoke up first,

“This is ours to take, you were too slow and arrived second.”

The bandit leader laughed,

“Well pardon me if we didn’t want to prance around naked like you lot.”

Knocking his knuckles against his breastplate the bandit adds,

“If there is fighting and dying to be done, I want some steel between me and my enemies to make sure I am not the one dying. Now why don’t you boys piss off and let us professionals take care of this?”

Zodd’s knuckles popped as his fists clenched his two handed sword,

“The great Bear spirit protects me, I will take that over your heavy steel clothes any day. We were here first, that makes this wagon ours to loot. You should leave before you experience the power of the Stone Bear Clan first hand.”

The bandit spits to the side and glares at the large barbarian,

“Alright you naked fool, we will just kill the lot of you and then loot the wagon. We could use a good workout anyway.”

With that the bandit pulls out a hand crossbow and fires it at Zodd.

Roars of rage blasted from the group of barbarians as they all let the battle rage take over. Zodd didn’t feel the crossbow bolt as it bit into his shoulder and was upon the bandit leader just as the other man was drawing his longsword. Zodd felt the strength of the Bear burning through his veins and with a mighty swing of his greatsword disarmed the bandit leader by cutting the bandit’s arm off at the elbow. The bandit leader only had a moment to stare at the blood pumping from his arm stump in stunned disbelief before Zodd removed his head from his body.

The barbarians and bandits were so busy trying to kill each other that none of them noticed as the merchant wagon and its two guards quickly exited the area.

As the rage wore off and Zodd returned to his senses he noticed that there were not very many of his barbarian brothers left standing, but there were no bandits alive that he could see. As they went about looting the corpses of the fallen a barbarian trotted up and said,

“The merchant wagon is too far away to reach now.”

Zodd shrugs,

“Fighting those bandits was more fun anyway. We have done our ancestors proud this day. The legend of Loincloth Wednesdays continues.”

This will be fun to watch :)

What I think might be a workable compromise would be something along the lines of guild halls or company HQs. Whether in settlements or as PoIs, this provides a single structure benefiting an entire company of players.

I like this idea, but obviously only if it can be destroyed just like any other Settlement building.

It would be really cool to be able to go into other folks settlements and see how certain companies got enough money and resources to build and decorate their HQ.

@Guurzak you should post these proposals on the ideascale site.

Pretty sure a very similar concept was already posted on ideascale.

Link

But since I want this to be in the game pretty badly I have no problem with Guurzak making another one.

Everything in this thread made me laugh hahaha
Thanks!

You know, I hope somebody appreciates the effort I went to on Cobalt Clover's profile. Sometimes I get carried away.

Hahahaha

Special Abilities: Friendship Blast

Hehehehehe

A barbarian doesn't need special magic on their loincloth. Of course it doesn't act like armor, it's a loincloth. More importantly they are a barbarian and they don't need armor or clothes or baths! So stay away water wench! Take thy poisonous soaps elsewhere! I am clean, I bathe in my enemies blood daily! Naked as the moon! Mwa ha ha, mwa ha ha ha ha ha ha!

MWA HA HA HA HA!

Salutations from Freevale! Glad to have you all aboard. I very much look forward to working with you all.

What he said :)

If you ever need a Barbarian, hit me up.

My dearest hope is that I can run around in a Loin Cloth in PFO, particularly on Wednesdays. Zodd could be wearing anything and be a sexy beast, so it isn't about that. I just think a barbarian should be able to sport a loin cloth.

Level 1 Human Barbarian. Power Attack and Furious Focus as starting feats. High Str and Con. Two handed sword or Axe. Run around raging and killing most things with first hit.

Or if I wanted to play something broken I would play a Magus, probably with Kensai archetype.

I like this idea, because it will help me realize my dream of creating obscene symbols in game with corpses.

MMMM Corpsified Skunk Smell

What a unique fragrance. We should bottle it and sell it to orc females as perfume.

Omega Towers has a nice ring to it. I am going to call any towers I help capture Omega Towers, even if they are "Alpha Towers".

Why would you inhibit more player customization and options? It makes very little sense to me why additional races (Especially Uncommon races such as Tiefling, Aasimar, and Dhampir) would be prohibited from player choice.

More choice and options = more diverse community. People like having the choice to play what best expresses them. In my opinion the more Race options we have the better. Cash Shop the races and make a profit Goblinworks, because I will buy every single one. I know for a fact that I won't be the only one either.

I think it is more likely that having those races in the game is such a far off priority that they were down voted. Don't be sad dude, you are still #1 in PFO IdeaScale points.... for now.

Also, PSA: BBCODE TAGS DO NOT WORK ON THE SITE. Sorry, but it's driving me nuts when people mess up their perfectly good links with [url].

Yeah I posted the 1st idea on there last night and found out the hard way that not only is there no BBCODE, but you can't edit your idea after you post it either. Bleh.

Also gratz Cheatle for having something like 50% of the ideas on there haha.

a new round started with the paladin at the top of the initiative.

I have a house rule that I have used for years now when I GM, that if a character has negative HP and is unconscious they go last on the initiative count since they are out of the fight. I think I made this rule due to a similar situation where a character was going at the top of the round and would have died, so I made this rule up on the spot to let his companions have a chance to save him. Just throwing it out there as an idea for other GMs to use.

So, to turn those whingings into some positive suggestions:

• Turn off badges if possible. Crowdforging and social media seem incompatible.
• Enable multi-choice polls
• Have all suggestions either flow through GW or be anonymous
• Don't be afraid to quickly kill questions that are utterly impractical or stupid. (Not just lock them, but remove them)

(stopped saying if possible after the first one)

After sleeping on it, I was thinking the exact same things would improve this tool immensely.

"Ooh! I can get a badge if I create a "yes/no" suggestion vote for everyone of the 19 (so far) suggestions for what should we name the DI buildings"

Oh you rascal you.

I just wanted to quickly test this crowdforging site and the settlement structure thing seemed like an easy way to do so. I am sorry I didn't pick Public Works or Civic Improvements or whatever else you might have wanted.

They could be wrong about all these things, but that doesn't change that they see them and feel that way.

Those feelings are real and should not be discounted. I agree, and I was too quick to dismiss the fears as illogical and thus without merit.

But what can we as a community even do to sooth those fears if these silent people do not voice their fears?

You are doing a great and brave thing by taking it upon yourself to champion these people and their fears, Caldeathe Baequiannia.

I just don't see anything we can do if there is no actual discussion to address all these silent fears.

Even then, most people could go years at a time without encountering a bandit who wanted what they have.

I genuinely think this will effectively be the case in PFO as well. Maybe not years, but certainly not all the time.

Ryan, the thumbnail of you on that site doesn't have a beard. I feel like the beard demands more respect... :p

GW is always doing these crazy things to involve the community. Pure madness. You have godly patience and I applaud your efforts to listen to the PFO community's ramblings.

Zodd Zerker wrote:

Caldeathe Baequiannia wrote:

Some people are afraid that every time they step outside (whether to visit another town, or to harvest, or to seek out a little PvE) they will be subjected to banditry and violence. That fear is being reinforced with every passing minute on these boards.

Why?!

Where has there been even one post from anyone that said they will be attacking anyone they see for no meaningful reason?

The reason doesn't have to be meaningless to be frustrating. Person B wanting the herbs and minerals that person A just spent their only available playing time this week harvesting is perfectly meaningful, and still makes person A fear they're about to waste their time and money.

To be crippled by a fear of what "could" happen is not a valid reason to not at least try the game. A comet could come out of no where and hit planet Earth killing most of us, but I am not going to lose sleep over it.

If you want to go out gathering resources, do it with a friend or two. If you get attacked by overwhelming forces, run away. It isn't that crazy of a concept. A few hundred years ago it would have been common sense for survival. With the tower system in place other players are going to have way better things to do with their time than wait hours for some lone gatherer to walk by.

Like I said, these fears are baseless, irrational, and I should know better than to try to argue against such nonsense.

Some people are afraid that every time they step outside (whether to visit another town, or to harvest, or to seek out a little PvE) they will be subjected to banditry and violence. That fear is being reinforced with every passing minute on these boards.

Why?!

Where has there been even one post from anyone that said they will be attacking anyone they see for no meaningful reason?

If people are afraid of this, it is because they are giving into their baseless fears instead of facing them with rational deduction.

A mash-up of WoW, Call of Duty, Candy Crush and Clash of Clans.

Hahaha oh jeeze, I bet some terrible game company is trying to actually do that.

I prefer terms that sound like a mid-fantasy world, rather than a tech production studio in Redmond, WA.

CIVIC ASSETS

It's in your town, affects your town, and is never outside your town or working with things other than your town right? Civic. "Auxillary" is a word with much more diverse application and we should save it for some other really good meaning later on (formations?).

If it makes something better, adds worth, it's an asset, and that word is more descriptive for its purpose than "structure". We can't be more specific than that because it already means statuary to grain silos and could get even more diverse in the future.

'Enhancement' could work but that word already has a specific connotation for the game (which is why we're changing the name from 'support structure' in the first place).

Unless we're going to be able to build a +3 Settlement of Never Sleeping. Just avoid the flaming keyword.

Completely agree 100%.

A garden is not a structure, but if it provides a DI bonus then it is an asset for your settlement. And you had the same sentiment about enhancement that I had.

I think a lot of these terms are great, but obviously Civic Asset makes the most sense to me in this setting. Index Asset is good, but I don't want to use Index as I can't picture a character in game referring to the hero statue in the center of town as a great 'Index Asset'. The character has no concept of Development Index, that is meta. I could picture the character calling it a Civic Asset though.

Ok, I will shut up about this now, I already made my choice clear and I don't want to be that guy.

To me introducing a non consensual PVP element fundamentally changes a cooperative game to a competitive game....

I am willing to give the game a try. We shall see how it goes.

Well it is good that you are waiting to place final judgement until there is actually a game to play. I hope others follow that example.

About the non consensual PvP part, I believe GW stated that you should be able to escape with your character's life intact if you run away when attacked. I know it still sucks to be out exploring or gathering resources and suddenly another guy pops up and starts attacking you for no reason. That is a crappy feeling, but that won't happen as much in PFO as in other open world PvP games due to the reputation system.

As far as it being more competitive than cooperative, it was the choie between going with a themepark style MMO and a sandbox style MMO. GW has explained why they went with sandbox, and it makes sense. Just imagine PFO as what would happen if thousands of players were playing a Pathfinder Tabletop campaign that had some supercomputer AI Gamemaster. They wouldn't all cooperate all the time. There would be competition for resources, just like in real life during the medieval times.

I encourage others that have kickstarted this project that don't think it will be the game they thought it was to wait until Open Enrollment to make their final judgement. Writing it off before you even get in and play some just seems like a strange choice to me.

Can't remember if this has been addressed yet:

A company can have control of only one tower. What happens if they try to take another tower? Do they lose their old tower, or are they simply unable to count as taking control of the new tower?

*cough*

Civic Assets

*cough*

Sorry, had to clear my throat there.

Enhancement isn't a bad word, except it makes me think of enhancement bonuses on weapons and armor in the tabletop game.
Like a +3 enhancement bonus on my greatsword.

adding temporary features to fill holes in their code

There weren't holes in their code. They never promised to deliver anything that engaged meaningful PvP at the beginning of EE until now, with the WotT. Without an in game mechanic for a PvP outlet you would be getting random PvP at anytime, anywhere, if you wanted it or not.

As Tork stated (oh yeah, I am totally using what you said to make a point, muhaha)

Believe me I have a gazillion sketches of how we could make this more comprehensive and a thousand additional features we could add. We discussed many of them and their technical implications and decided that the minimal subset workable areas described in the blog. Each additional feature we add to WotT is time taken away from completing the final product and while some of these may seem super-trivial they tend to bring with them a rabbit hole of cornercases and UI requirements that make them unfeasible as part of a temporary system. Them's the breaks :/

They are doing what they can with limited time and resources. Not everyone is going to get what they want, but the game will still be enjoyable.

If you don't like the Towers, rest assured that they will only be in PFO for a short time. The only bonus anyone gets from them is some Civic Assets in their Settlement.

As much fun as we're having here, imagine when we start discussing Wish spells.

Wishful thinking.

I see what you did there, you little rascal haha.

Cal B wrote:

Those of us who expected to have a few months in which to learn PvP while it would affect our ability to accumulate gear and recipes, but would not affect our settlements (and, therefore our ability to recruit new players) have lost that window. To new players entering the world after the first few days it will be obvious that the larger groups have not just a size advantage, but also an in-game mechanical advantage to their ability to train and support characters.

What do you think it means to "learn PvP"? Is there some skill that you think other players already have but you don't? If not, everyone starts at the same point.

Do you think that PvP experience from other games won't cross over at all?

The well practiced ability to coordinate with other players on the battlefield. To keep calm while another human being is attacking you in game. Also a lot of PvP tactics have crossover from other games. Sure the combat system will be a little different from other games, but PvP skill is a real thing.

Just saying.

For the duration of the War of the Towers characters will only be able to be members of ONE company.

In the long run players can be members of 3 companies, but the War of the Towers will be over by then.

Makes sense, thank you for clearing that up.

It seems to me that most of the people freaking out about this blog are folks that don't really have a grasp of the game mechanics that GW has been planning on implementing into PFO all along.

I don't really see how the Towers are all the different from Points of Interest. They allow control of a hex, only one per company, they have a vulnerability window, they improve the settlement that their owning company is affiliated with.

Most importantly they provide meaningful PvP.

They worked hard to implement this for us way earlier than was expected. Do you know what the beginning of EE would be like without the war of towers? Lots of random PvP. Every where. If you think you might have problems gathering resources and exploring now, think about what it would be like if the PvPers didn't have any source of meaningful PvP. I am one of those dreaded PvPers, I revel in the challenge of trying to outmatch another human being instead of a scripted creature. The Towers are going to provide a way for me to sake my thirst for that challenge. This is a good thing, trust me.

As far as small companies not being able to run a successful settlement on their own... they were never supposed to be able to do that. The intended goal from the beginning was to have multiple good sized, 30~50 players, companies supporting a settlement. Yes it sucks that at the moment it is difficult to communicate with anyone and get them to join your settlement, that is a challenge we are all facing. Once EE starts it will be a lot easier since we will actually be in the game.

I am very happy about this development. Thank you GW.

Do you think that the company that currently has control of a tower should get a system message when that tower comes under attack?

"All the Towers indirectly controlled by a Settlement share the same PvP window. Each Tower hex must be attacked and defended individually but they all open and close their PvP windows at the same time."

If you are helping defend a different tower that belongs to your settlement it would be good to know that you need to hustle over to your company's tower instead. Although maybe that will be part of the risk involved, you need to leave someone to guard each tower since you won't know if it is being attacked... hmmmm.

Each tower requires a set number of capture points to be captured. Lets call it 50 for now. There are number of capture locations around the tower. Lets call it 10 for now. An unstealthed character has to interact with the capture location an action that takes a certain amount of time, interruptible time. Lets call it 1 minute. The ability to use a certain capture location is on a cool down for a certain amount of time after it is used. Lets call it 2 minutes.

In this scenario even with 10 different people able to capture the locations without being interrupted it would take 15 minutes. For one person if they were not interrupted it would take 50 minutes and he would have to rotate around to different capture locations.

Obviously the numbers are up for tweaking, but it rewards lots of people trying to capture while it doesn't make it impossible to slow them down by interrupting them.

DeciusBrutus wrote:

Ryan Dancey wrote:

We shot video this afternoon. I'm going to edit it and put it up but we probably won't release it until tomorrow.

Confirmed: PFO EE release Thursday 6/19!

Unless I'm confused, you probably mean "alpha," not "EE?"

It was a joke. The proper response is a polite chuckle. Although the golf clap given above was nice too.

Sets down a plate of brownies with a note that reads:

"Welcome LIS. Please enjoy the brownies. Members only."

One day while out for a stroll, Zodd sees a plate of brownies on a table by the road. There is a piece of that paper nonsense that the weaklings from the south liked to hide behind. They always threw their paper at him screaming about their "laws", but Zodd had found that his sword could slash through the lawmen's papers just as easily as it could their bodies. The thought of that made Zodd smile. He peered at the strange symbols on the paper, but could not make any sense of them. Looking around to see if anyone was watching him, the barbarian picks up one of the brownies. He sniffs it suspiciously and when he is satisfied that it smells like a proper brownie he shoves the whole thing in his mouth and eats it. He makes a satisfied sound and then picks up the plate and continues on his way while snacking on the rest of the brownies.

This is a placeholder for the link in the blog.

Let the speculation begin!

*Rage*

Zodd starts flipping tables

I am partial to:
Building Of Our Brotherhood.

1st: Barbarian
2nd: Paladin
3rd: Bard
4th: Sorcerer

Recently I have been playing some March of War with a buddy. I have a crew that I play Payday 2 with about once a week. When I can get a friend or two to dedicate the required hours I have played some epic games of Endless Space.

The most recent MMO that I played more than one evening was Secret World, but the guys I were playing with got conflicting schedules now so I haven't hopped into that for a long while.

I can't really do single player games anymore, which sucks since there are some great ones out there. I just end up getting bored and watch some TV instead when I try to play solo haha.

Zodd Zerker wrote:

Caldeathe Baequiannia wrote:

T7V Jazzlvraz wrote:

Four for you, two for a guest? Four for now, two for later?

Why on earth would you buy beer in anything less than a 24 pack?

I don't buy beer by the can? Good beer is bottled :p

Uhm... If it's not bottles, it's not really a two-four

24 cans is a flat.

Oh my Glob! I need to move to Canada haha