darkling23's page

Can I get a copy?

I certainly hope nothing drastic is done rule-wise to Pathfinder at any point. There is nothing wrong with the current races as is, I'm glad skill synergies are out as they were a pain and the 3x3 alignment system is still great for what it models. Alignment was already broken by Wizards with 4E.. Paizo doesn't need to take a crack at breaking it too.

I do agree that crafting needs to be overhauled. Everyone probably agrees with that. :)

Hey, there it is. =D

I am excited! I hope it becomes available soon. :)

Ooh. I should do this again. Bookmarked to remind me :D

The book sounds fantastic. I went with $30 myself, I'm a PDF kinda guy. Glad this went so well!

I had a player make an evil PC once. He wanted to use Book of Vile Darkness stuff, particularly the sacrifice table/mechanic. I let him do it but ended up planning elements of the campaign around it.

The first time he sacrificed someone, I introduced the main villain of the campaign- a half-dragon who had set up a man-in-the-middle hack of the universe, allowing him to steal intentionally sacrificed souls for his own use. The theme of sacrifice became central to the campaign from that point on and the player abandoned doing it for a time until he could be certain the sacrificed soul would get to the right place and he'd get his rewards. Later, they ran across a town run by a mysterious group of monks(servants of the half-dragon) who could channel powerful clerical magic by sacrificing large numbers of slaves at a time. The party (unknowingly until after the fact) benefited from this when that evil character got infected with lycanthropy and the monks sacrificed a large group of slaves in a large ceremony to cure him. I regret the campaign never quite concluding, it was a VTT game and I lost the data files during a crash, but it certainly worked at curbing his main evil tendency while also giving him a good reason to stick with a party of neutral/good guys. They all wanted to stop this half-dragon who was gaining immense power, just for their own reasons.

Yes, it would be a bit much for some players, but the over the top insanity of it all worked great for my group. So I guess my take on evil characters is to try to out-evil them. Large scale systemic evils are great at that and give them a good reason to co-operate with people they might not otherwise.

darkling23 wrote:

Endzeitgeist wrote:

10 hours and we actually might make the 25K - this would be so extremely awesome...

It sure would! I missed Journeys to the West, but am certainly excited by this. =)

You can still sign up to receive Journeys, btw, until the end of the month on the KQ Store, though all the brainstorming and most of the manuscript is done. There's one pirate book supplement remaining.

That's true! And I almost did. The $10 shipping threw me off because I don't want the print book. I'd rather have pledged $25 in the KS and got all the PDFs rather than $30+$10 to pay for the softcover and all the PDFs. It's nitpicky to be sure, but I'm not so full of money and generally prefer PDFs to print books (I've only played via VTT for many years now). So I was figuring I'd wait... even though that'll probably mean not getting any of the extras.

10 hours and we actually might make the 25K - this would be so extremely awesome...

It sure would! I missed Journeys to the West, but am certainly excited by this. =)

darkling23 wrote:

Is that how it was handled in EVE?

No. There's zero attempt to limit in-game grief in EVE. The developers think its a feature, not a problem.

Quote:

I've heard a remarkable amount horror stories about griefers in EVE completely ruining the game for people.

Of course, the converse is true. People who cannot find fun in any other MMO find it in EVE.

RyanD

That's interesting about their perspective. I can see why some folks would appreciate this attitude and how cutthroat it would make the game, but that is certainly too much for me. :)

Anyhow, while I fear this may not be up my alley, I do hope it turns out interesting. Good luck.

Ah, well I've seen a handful of references to 'HeroEngine' tossed around. I assumed it was decided, my mistake!

I still loathe MMOs, though. I don't appreciate other people wrecking the game I'm playing. Online gaming is notoriously full of the worst people imaginable hiding behind pseudo-anonymity. How do you plan to combat the jerks whose sole reason for playing is wrecking peoples fun? You talk about avoiding griefing with this bounty system but I have to ask, is that how it was handled in EVE? I've heard a remarkable amount horror stories about griefers in EVE completely ruining the game for people.

Also, are you going to enforce strict rules against harassment of F2P players or are you going to encourage a caste system where subscribers are allowed to harass and insult F2P players until they quit or subscribe? Because that's complete garbage and you should just drop the F2P model completely if you are going to encourage it like the others apparently do. Maybe I sound harsh in these statements, but I've loathed all my F2P MMO experiences and this is a large reason why.

It may seem weird that I'm even here, since I'm so frustrated with my MMO experiences. The thing is, though, I've been wanting a Pathfinder game for ages. Ages! Despite the replies of others in this thread, I really feel the door is closed on a good single player RPG using this system or in this game world because of this project. :/

They keep saying they're not making a theme park MMO, but then they say they're using the same engine as SW:TOR, just without their modifications.

The core is going to be the same as every other MMO, completely identical. It has to be, they're using modular pre-made systems and slapping on Pathfinder paint. If they want to make something new, they'd need to start from scratch, that's at least a five year dev cycle for a AAA level game, they simply won't do it. This is a cash grab before MMO's completely die. Simple as that.

edit; Don't tell me to read the blog. I have. I'm not stupid. :P

So there's going to be no way to avoid griefers? Nonstop PVP, everywhere?

I'm going to make a new character and be ganked within 5 minutes and have my starting gear looted? Like in UO?

My suggestion would be to not penalize people for not wanting to group all the time and set up all content to be viable for a solo player. A good example of a game that does this now (to some extent) is SW:TOR. While the game eventually does force you to group up, for a majority of the game you can get by with an NPC companion. Allow that through the entire game and that'd be great. =)

I am looking forward to spending 50 hours doing something that I could have paid $20 to skip because it's a F2P MMO and that's how they work. I can't wait to be nickel and dimed by microtransactions! Also I look forward to killing 6 pigs. Or maybe 8. Or collecting 6-8 boar tusks and returning them to a questgiver who then will say thanks and then offer me the quest again. Oh! Also I am looking forward to griefers trying to wreck the game for everyone.

I can't wait!

Yes they are single player RPGs, because there is no redeeming value in any MMO that I've played. I'd enjoy the narratives if they made sense, but they don't. You can endlessly repeat any quest, the entire game world ends up completely static and there's absolutely no point in doing anything because nothing ever changes.

If they make this MMO they'll be one in a sea of millions of horrible F2P MMOs. Even if they make a game that isn't as horrible, how are they planning on competing? Assuming they somehow get around all the problems of MMOs and make a great one, once they launch and aren't making any money how long will it take for them to wreck it in order to make some?

All those stories about MMOs going F2P and becoming successful are because the MMOs in question have huge licenses with built in fanbases spanning decades. Pathfinder is going to need to sell out HARD to compete, and I don't want to see that.

A single player RPG is what they should be making. But they're being greedy and thinking an MMO will bring in more money. It's kinda gross, really. I would like to expect more from this company.

Plenty! I'll stick to the RPGs, though. Planescape Torment. Dragon Age 1 and 2. Fallout New Vegas. Deus Ex Human Revolution. Divinity 2. Risen. Arx Fatalis. I recently dumped 40 hours into Skyrim and liked it, despite being quite displeased with Oblivion and Morrowind. I really dig roguelikes, Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup is my current top choice there. I have a weakness for Dungeon Master clones, particularly the old ones by Westwood (Eye of the Beholder 1 and 2, Lands of Lore 1), and I can't wait for Legend of Grimrock. The Kingdoms of Amalur demo recently was pretty cool and I'm looking forward to that in February, as well.

The best part of all of those games is that you can save at any time, quit, and come back without missing a beat. I guess I like convenience.

I, too, prefer a regular CRPG. F2P MMO's have all proven to be pure garbage in the past and while I don't doubt Pathfinder Online is not planning on following their crap trends, I still don't have much hope.

I have tried DDO, LOTRO, DCUO, EQ2, APB, Age of Conan and well, that's just about enough of ALL that. None of those games are even remotely close to being good, and the reason is entirely to do with the barrier between F2P and subscribers.

What happens is you end up with a divided player base.. On one hand, you have brats who feel they are entitled to ruin the fun and insult F2P players because, as they say, they're the true supporters of the game and its real backbone and on the other hand you have the F2P players, who according to the paid subscribers, are just scumbag leeches profiting fun off of their money. This is an attitude I experienced in all of the MMO's I poked at. Either you pay or you're ostracized by the community. I hit a serious interface glitch and lost my entire inventory in EQ2 and dared say in general chat "Is there a moderator or GM or admin or someone seeing this? I've just lost my entire inventory, including backpack" and, since apparently the bug was well known and affected F2P players only, I was met with a chorus of people screaming at me to log off and never play again because I didn't pay for the game. My reaction? To log off and never play again.

If this kind of thing ever happens even once in PF Online, I'll also log off and never play again. And I'm sure plenty of other people trying out the MMO for the first time will be turned off by this. Unless they can guarantee that their game won't be full of the trash the other F2P MMO's are full of, I'm more than skeptical. If they try packaging it with some crooked malware client that eats your bandwidth like DDO or LOTRO does, I won't even install it.

That's my take on this potential nightmare.

I wrote "Reborn". I keep thinking that I should have gone with my working title "Zombie and Girl" but I didn't wanna get too jokey. I've gotten some feedback already but I'd be fond of knowing my score and hearing the notes that got me there.

This is exciting. I'd dig feedback too.

This is all very exciting. I think I passed my Craft (Short Story) check and am pretty sure my Knowledge (Golarion) was pretty good, but I suppose we'll see! :)

With 62ish stories, you judges have a lot to read in the next bit. Abit of math just informed me that it's up to 279k words to read! That's comparable with a mid-sized Wheel of Time book. So not only good luck to the other entrants, but good luck to the judges also! You've taken on quite a task.

Lilith wrote:

Your article was included, so as a contributor you will be getting a print copy.

Wasn't it one of the final cut-out? I think it was, can't remember....

** spoiler omitted **

I'm confused. I sent my mailing address to Lilith just in case..

Oh dear, I've been trying to come up with funds for donating so I could get a print copy all this time and now donations are closed. Was my article selected for the print edition? Is there any chance I could donate something now to get a copy? =o

This is all very thrilling. Glad this lurker could take part. :)

I ran "House of Cards" from Dungeon magazine 19 (I think) for a group. It's a dungeon crawl where every door is locked with a card from a Deck of Many Things, so basically every card from the deck was drawn once.

That was as evil as it gets.

I'm new to posting here, but quite dig the Pathfinder system and game world. My submission is in, hooray for community content!