htrajan's page

Wish I could edit my previous post. I will now answer the correct question at hand:

To provide an opinion on whether Pax is considered one guild or separate entities, I would say it's complicated but am leaning toward the former choice.

From what I've seen, they are most definitely not another Roseblood Accord, as all their member CCs / settlements seem to operate under the same rules / bylaws. It has been said that each settlement is given some level of autonomy, but they are still under the overarching Pax umbrella. The Roseblood Accord, on the other hand, is an entity that only lives by the collaboration of its *separate* underlying guilds. It is a group of completely different guilds that have joined together on the premise of shared goals and ideals.

tl;dr it's complicated, but I would not consider Golgotha a separate entity while they're under the Pax umbrella

Apologies if this has already been stated but I don't think the issue is whether Golgotha was a separate guild before the GW site landrush. The issue is that now Golgotha is under the Pax umbrella, Pax has the ability to funnel membership for the purpose of landrush votes to Golgotha for anyone that did not vote Pax in the original landrush poll. The ability for GW to do their due diligence on this is limited to only cross checking people who voted on the original landrush poll and the new one. This would not include people who intend to join Pax Aetnerum, didn't vote in the initial landrush, and are instead funneling their votes to Golgotha in order to effectively help Pax win a second settlement.

Unfortunately, there is no viable way to enforce that should you vote for Golgotha in the landrush, you are stuck with them ingame for at least a significant period of time. In an ideal world, GW would be able to cross check the membership roster of Golgotha only with those who voted for it in the landrush. If Golgotha were to win the settlement by the strength of its core membership, more power to them.

But, until we can completely refute that there is any vote-funneling happening, I find it in the best interest of the community to not include them in the landrush.

Yeah, so I guess I'm asking for the ability to declare a "fake feud" that doesn't require DI for the purposes of training and internal PvP competition. Specifically, it would be great if 2 groups within the same CC would be able to do this.

htrajan wrote:

Ok, good point, I forgot about the devs' decision to not do non-lethal. How about removing that aspect and instead just keeping the no penalty to alignment / reputation part?

Two companies could get rid of any alignment/reputation hits by declaring a feud with each other. Then they can kill each other all day without affecting their reputation and alignment, but things like equipment loss and such would still be in effect so you would want to be careful about it.

Ah okay, so you're saying feud declaration can be used for training purposes and not solely for actual warfare? I thought there was some sort of reputation cost for this if the CC you're declaring a feud on has a higher rep than yours?

+1 for Nihimon; even if he already has a job :P

I wasn't aware that this will not be available Day 1. If not day 1 then certainly I think it would be a good idea to retroactively apply the amount of XP equivalent to the amount of time the player has held an active sub to both characters.

+1 to this

Ok, good point, I forgot about the devs' decision to not do non-lethal. How about removing that aspect and instead just keeping the no penalty to alignment / reputation part?

I am hoping Lee or someone on the dev team can comment on the feasibility of this.

Basically, the idea is that two groups (usually within the same CC or alliance) can declare a friendly "skirmish" where for the period of the skirmish there are no penalties to alignment or reputation for attacking anyone on the other side. Should someone be "killed" in the skirmish, they are simply removed from the battle without actually dying.

The obvious application of this would be training purposes, with team PvP being a secondary application.

Thoughts?

With this be possible once GW wraps up the add-on switching functionality? Since my friend joined as my buddy, he didn't have his own add-on allowance, so I'd like to give him some of mine so he can get Twice-marked of Pharasma.

Htrajan from TEO (recently acquired by CotP in a merger & acquisition deal) present!

Cool, thanks!

Don't get me wrong, the pioneer level is still a great deal and I would have gotten it with only 1 free month, but just want some clarification:

On the Kickstarter page, pioneer is listed with 4 free months; whereas, in the fulfillment tool (very well done btw), it's only 2 free months.

20 - 30 dollars in the grand scheme of supporting this awesome game doesnt make a difference to me, but just wondering.

Thanks!

Worth noting here that early subscribers at the Crowdforger Pioneer level and higher get TWO characters that will receive the 100XP/hour deal.

You think discussions about wisdom and godhood are off topic in a thread about Nihimon's vocation?

<thunderstruck!>

Fair enough... I propose Nihimon be made a new God in the PF universe:

Nihimon (alignment: NE) - God of annihilation and discussion.

Domains: War, Destruction, Death, Evil
Favored Weapon: Tome

For those of you who didn't know how to pronounce His name before, you can thank me now. (If you still don't get it, read the part right after alignment more closely.)

Bloody derail... my threads never get derailed dammit! D':

Ooh I love stick-figure battles! I doodled them all the time on my novels in Lit class in grade school!

Being wrote:

Hypothesis. Theory is rather more demonstrated. I need to see some serious evidence here before we accept hypothesis as theory.

+1

It's sad when people misuse the word Theory.... I blame the media for scientific illiteracy.

Indeed... ever since The Big Bang Theory started airing, the word hypothesis has been deleted from my dictionary...

This thread is clearly not sarcastic. This is definitely a valid theory and I see no need to provide evidence to support it.

Setting? yes - It will be set in the River Kingdoms in the world of Golarion - an IP held by Paizo.

System? no, not quite... If you want a turn-based MMO, there is a F2P one that won a lot of awards (I personally tried it and found it boring... forgot what it's called).

Ok, hear me out here:

1) He spends enough time here for it to be a full-time job. :P

2) His cover as an ordinary member is perfect for being a Community Manager - he won't get spammed by PMs asking about this and that.

3) If he isn't CM, he damn well should be made CM!

I'm not sure I like the forced diversification. If I want to play a fighter, let me play a fighter.

I don't see it as forced diversification. If you want to get the bottom-level, barebones skill in any class, it will be easy to do. If you want to be the best Fighter in the River Kingdoms, that will be a bit harder to put it mildly.

This is basically parallel to real life. I could spend years and years training to be a professional player in any sport, or I can spend a few months or even weeks total and play casually in many sports.

Sounds pretty good and along the same spirit as we've heard before at a high level.

Only concern might be how someone that starts down all 11 paths (11 days training time) compares to someone that invests 11 days in a single path. One shouldn't always be a no brainer over the other. Although the "dedication" mechanics Stephan came up with earlier might help there.

The impression I got is advancing 1 step on all 11 paths will make you very versatile but not more powerful. Advancing 11 steps down one path will make you very powerful but less versatile. If getting to level 3 only takes an hour (say, 20 mins to lvl 2 and 40 to lvl 3), it should take on the order of 220 minutes to advance one level in 11 paths, yet it should take possibly more than a year to advance 11 levels in one path.

What I like is how starting a new path is like "rolling an alt." I can go down this new path on a char with the same HP and stats rather than having to roll a new weakling and repeating the early game each time. This is why I only roll one toon in every themepark I play.

Anyways, loving everything I read on this blog.

There are serious bandwidth improvement arguments to be made for treating a formation as one object as far as the server is concerned. Problem is, this will probably detract from the gameplay for anyone who isn't leading one. This would maybe imply automoving and maybe once in a while hitting a clicky on the screen to follow orders to raise a shield wall etc.

Indeed, this game will be more like an endless jog into the sunset rather than a treadmill.

The metaphorical difference between the two is that one involves constantly evolving content while the other involves repeating the same crap over and over again.

The fact that advancement is structured like EVE rather than vanilla themeparks makes it even better. If you look at a chart for number of EVE subs over time, you'll see that it is always upward sloping - meaning they always add more players than they lose. Charts for themeparks usually show a lot of growth early on and then a lot of fluctuation (predominantly negative) thereafter.

I don't know, if they are using a Plex like system, it would make sense to just give players how ever many Goblin Ears (or whatever GW is calling their version of Plex) they have game time for.

NO, not goblin ears! They will be Blank Adventurer's Journals! I called it first! D:< (Though I did rofl a bit inside at the thought of them being goblin ears... perhaps they could be a 0.00000000001% chance drop of a goblin mob...)

More to the point, I think RD means you can choose the start point of your four months, but cannot break them up and use them at your leisure.

Indeed, the system could be a trillion point buy yet would still be meaningless without knowing the cost of stat advancement at each point.

In more general terms, if not reactive abilities, it would be great if combat had some sort of visual cue that required your attention and severely punish macros.

As for twitchiness, I will take that any day over the ABCD button cycle fest that bores me to tears. This game has many different spheres of advancement, so if "twitchy", skill-intensive combat is not your thing, there are still many others areas that compensate and make it a fun game. IMHO, people who dismiss this idea as twitchy have been brainwashed by the premise that MMO combat is supposed to be "easy".

My 2coin...

Oh, didn't know that... I am already so bored of lotro that I will dive into this game face first when EE comes out, even if all there is to do is run around and explore the RK (bit of an exaggeration, but you get my point).

I am too lazy to dig this thread up, but Ryan Dancey (tentatively) confirmed in a reply to a question of mine that there will be a PLEX-like item in the game. I suggested GW call this a "Blank Adventurer's Journal." :D

EE is a less complete game - hence my ability to buy 21 months off KS addons for only $190! (time value of money is virtually irrelevant these days)

Bwahahaha.. derailed from the third post; I am loving this thread already!!

Magic Missile (x1)
|
Two Magic Missiles (x3)
|
Three Magic Missiles (x5)
|
Four Magic Missiles (x7)
|
Five Magic Missiles (x9)
|
Attack the Darkness(TM) (xBazillion)

Bleh, stupid space trimming killed my diagram... :(

Hopefully you guys still get the jist of it...

So this game will already have a strong PvP focus creating a higher barrier to entry than most MMOs. Adding a reactive dimension to combat would raise the bar even higher but also provide something that other MMOs for the most part lack.

For example, the selection circle at a mob's base will glow red indicating it's about to attack. This would give you about a second to hit a hotkey that readies a defensive maneuver. If you succeed, you parry the mob's attack and break its defenses for a couple seconds, allowing you to retaliate with a devastating counterattack. This would probably be made less ez-mode in PvP by removing the glowing red circle by forcing you to focus on what the player is actually doing and having the proper muscle memory to hit the corresponding hotkey. (To practice for this when fighting mobs, you would be able to turn off UI attack indicators in settings.)

To prevent abuse of this, use of this sort of ability would perhaps be limited to once every 10-15 seconds. I think a cool way to implement this would be to change what WASD does in combat if you hold down the left and right click buttons simultaneously. If you're a "fighter" type character for instance, you might see something like this on the screen:

|- pre-emptive counter
W
parry left - A S D - parry right
|
reactive counter

Where a pre-emptive counter is a lightning quick strike that interrupts the enemy's attack, breaks their defenses and advances you forward; parry left and right are defensive abilities that block the incoming attack and reposition you to the left or right; and reactive counter is a maneuver that causes you to dart backward dodging the enemy's blow and then quickly counterattack during that vulnerable moment where they have missed you and need to reposition their weapon.

I would be over the moon if something like this could be implemented, as it would put an end to the button-mashing fest that is MMO combat today.

Would you guys like to see something like this? Would it be feasible? If you wouldn't like something like this, why not?

Note that reactive abilities could extend to things like counterspells, sudden defensive/healing spells, and other things.

I just run the game in windowed mode at native resolution so I can switch to a different window in that monitor if I so choose.

two monitors is awkward because your main focus of view (square in the middle) would look like half your character is on one monitor and half on the other

if this game were to support multi-monitor views, it would most likely be one of the aforementioned 3-monitor setups

something I could see happening would be having the actual game on one screen and the other being a handy utility window with access to your character sheet, inventory, and perhaps a searchable encyclopedia/lorebook or other cool gadgets - that would be pretty cool

へーーー　わるこさん日本語できるんだー

First off, big congrats to Ryan Dancey and the team. You captivated us with your vision and the end result is the $1M you asked for and then some.

Secondly, a big round of applause to all of us who bent over backwards to get us there with 5 hours remaining.

*Pours a big glass of fine Ale.* Cheers!!

WE DID IT!!!!

I have done what I reasonably can. If we make it be sure and show your appreciation to the Early Access folks who didn't get all the daily deals, because those will be the folks who made it possible.

Seconded. No intention to sound preachy but a lot of us are bending over backwards to see this through, and believe me, I would have pledged before the DDs started had I just known about the game.

Best of luck to you man. I'm at $365 and can't pledge any more (tuition and rent recently wiped out my bank acct), and my 1 FB friend who plays MMOs I brought on as my crowdforger buddy.

Also put $100 toward my PK's tavern, so I'm at almost $500 for this game(!)

Wish I could give more, but alas I am tapped out with a $365 pledge. (Buddy + 21 extra months for me)

Not to mention a tuition and rent payment back to back recently took my bank account down from 5 to 3 figures... T_T

It's behaving weirdly for me. Takes around 2 hours to get to half-full, then fails. Is there a way to download this as an actual client rather than viewing it in the browser?

I got the crowdforger buddy pack for myself and a friend and recently tacked on $190 to add 21 months of subscription time for a grand total of over two years! I think anyone who anticipates being serious about this game are shooting themselves in the foot by not getting at least the 12 months for $100 if they have the $ to spare.

Unless there is something wrong from my perspective, the latest post is still only December 12th... weren't these supposed to be every two weeks?

lotro

Not liking it, but it's being made bearable by being in an active, thriving guild where everyone contributes, sorting of making a "pseudo-sandbox" experience. I hope this hits the $3M stretch goal adding extra acceleration to the release plan!

I've done the same, but a brief nod from Ryan would be very helpful.

I do not believe this is a niche game nor do I believe GW is targeting a niche audience. I do strongly believe this type of game will overtake theme park MMORPGs by a very large margin in due time. Sometimes it's very hard to sell a vision to people who haven't seen anything similar before. You can't really sell why this gameplay is attractive, people just have to trust your vision and then they will see how great it is when it comes to fruition.

^This

Believe me, killing 10 rats to prevent them from diseasing your entire settlement's larder is far more meaningful than doing it because some quest-giver said so. With a sandbox game vs a themepark, once you realize everything you do has an overarching purpose, it stops being a grind and starts becoming interesting.

I will add here that themeparks at endgame can be fun if you're a contributing member to an active, thriving guild. After upgrading your gear from all those raids, you give the stuff you don't need to others in the guild who don't have the time commitment to raid as actively. Or if you're mass-crafting hundreds or even thousands of consumables, they are actually serving the purpose of going towards guild raiding.

I call this a "pseudo-sandbox", and it's making lotro bearable enough for me to hold out until PFO comes out.

Sorry, your reply is completely out of context now because I changed this thread into a whole new thread hahaha

But yes, this was originally about how to add add-ons, and basically you manually increase your pledge by the specified amount (e.g. $100 -> $200 if you're a Pioneer and want to add a 1y sub) while keeping the same pledge level.

i.e., add $190 to get one 1yr and three 3m gametime codes

I'm guessing the answer is probably yes but just want to be 100% clear.

Word... I barely noticed this game on an offhand blog post on Massively, read the blog and was instantly hooked. And mind you, I've been playing nothing but themeparks for years.