tad10's page

I'll take that bet.

Star Trek Online is instanced. So I think you've already lost it if that's the example you're using now.

You stated you want:

1. A non-instanced fantasyworld.
2. Entire playerbase on that world.

I stated:

You can't do that with current tech without getting massive lag and making an unplayable game (and/or imposing some ungodly queue).

You stated:

But EVE and STO can do it.

I am stating:

Nothing you've said as changed my mind. Particularly now that you're using instanced games like STO to justify statement #2. It is clear from your statement and EVE comments that you are not planning on a seemless world - but planning for an EQ-like Zone system to seperate playable areas.

I actually don't have a problem with this (indead on fohguild you can find a post from me 6 months or so ago, where I argue for exactly that based on development cost). But even with a zoned game you will still have severe lag with the system you are proposing if you put everybody on one 'server'.

Fantasy games are _not_ space sims. Some zones will be better than others and players will go to those zones. What works with 4,500 to start won't work with 120k players.

To be blunt:

I've got a lot more MMO history on my side of this dogfight than you do. Exactly how many failed MMOs litter the gaming landscape? And exactly why should anyone believe that you can succeed where other much better funded companies have not?

P.S. Darkfall is a terrible example, and I'm not even talking about the terrible lag when it released. It's the posterchild for what's wrong with time-based skills in a fantasy game. Players will setup macros and AFK.

Can you identify your youtube channel now so we can check it and make sure who the owner is and that they don't already have a hat-eating video? Granted that person 'could' make a hat-eating video later, but by pre-identifying it (whether or not that person actually is you) then we dramatically reduce the odds of cheating.

I'm well known on fohguild :-) surfacetad10 is my youtube alias.

Here's an old VG video of mine.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QsTIG-QNgWo

I'm not worried about the bet as the tech doesn't exist to do what Ryan said he wanted to do. Sure he can put everyone on a server but a la EVE if something big is going on lag will be crazy.

Frankly I'm surprised he commented - he clearly follows the Ngruk school of CEOing.

And yet Second Life peaked at nearly 90k in 2009.

Please don't compare Second Life to an actual game - a 45 fps?

AS for the rest, the way you handle 120,000 people on one "server" is through massive instancing. That's not what Ryan says he is doing. He stated that he's doing non-instanced content. There's two things they could be doing - zoned content (a la EQ, Vanilla WoW) or seemless world (VG, some later WoW expansions). If zoned content then he's using a form of instancing - but he's still going to get zone crashes when 10,000 people hit a zone. What goes on with any server with that many people is effectively an denial of service attack because too many people are hitting a particular server with requests. What WoW and DCUO have done is setup queues - so only a subset of the playerbase is acdtually hitting the game server. Thus my bet above.

From his response to my post it's pretty clear that Ryan wants to try and put it all on one "server" because he wants to do it, not because it is a particularly good idea (it's not). Lets face it, from a practical standpoint you want multiple servers because its easier to grow the business.

What he should be doing given his slow growth business model is: start out with one server then split it once he hits a certain usage level. Then grow servers A & B until they hit that same usage level and split again.

You really have no idea what you're talking about, do you?

Lol. You get a 120k active playerbase (again using the 20% rule means about 24k online most nights) in a fantasy game that is on one "server" that is majority non-instanced content without horrendous lag in populated areas or daylong queues and I'll eat my hat on youtube. I think that's a pretty fair bet. And don't tell me you're extrapolating from EVE. A space game is not a fantasy game and last time I checked, didn't EVE have horrendous lag when too many players sat and fought it out?

I mostly like your busiiness plan as revealed on your blog (I think you're making things a little more complicated then necessary by going for skills/archetypes instead of simpler classes/levels but whatever - I am sure UO fans will go bananas when they find out) except for this 1 server idea and my comment above that you need to allow for friendvites for un-guilded individual players.

We want the largest possible servers. If we can get everyone into one, that's the ideal outcome.

Lol. Given you want a 120k playerbase I don't think this is going to work as well as you think it will (unless you public instance every zone). You must have missed the AQ opening in WoW or the EQ progression server nightmares that was Lower Guk during Vanilla prog.

I think the rule of thumb is that no more than 20% of your playerbase is online at any given time (barring game starts or new expansions or whatever) with 120k that means 24,000 people online at all times. That's a lotta meatballs for one server.

This is not a problem if you're using instanced content (e.g. DCUO) but if you are trying for a non-instanced world it won't work. There is no server software currently existing that can handle that kind of load without severe lag (not necessarily lag everywhere, but certainly where players are concentrated).

It's statements like this that make me think your game is vaporware Ryan. :( I am really hoping it is not vaporware given the lack of sandbox MMOs on the horizon.

Good luck.

Its not as such a case of allowing the wild west; the wild west represents a sense of lawlessness and chaos. This isn't the case.

We will have to agree to disagree. I think PvP is overrated and unecessary outside of specific zones. More to the point, the devs are pushing away a large core gaming population of people who don't like and don't want to participate in open world PvP.

I linked the F.A.Q in my original post (click F.A.Q).

They have told us that the game will be dropping the OGL as it is not transferable to an MMORPG and will instead go with a skill system. Skill systems work in that you raise a single skill through skill points which you acquire through completing a certain relevant task.

Mining will increase your skill points in mining etc.

Ultima Online and Eve Online are both examples of functional skill systems, yet it's hard to tell you which to look at as we don't know how this skill system will be implemented. The examples in UO and Eve differ greatly from one another.

https://goblinworks.com/faq/

Found it. They're cheating ;-) They're using time-linked skill development to simulate levels and archetypes to simulate classes. I think that's overcomplicated the issue (they should just use level+classes+skills) but if it gets to the same result as classes/levels I'm not going to worry about it.

I linked the F.A.Q in my original post (click F.A.Q).

They have told us that the game will be dropping the OGL as it is not transferable to an MMORPG and will instead go with a skill system. Skill systems work in that you raise a single skill through skill points which you acquire through completing a certain relevant task.

Mining will increase your skill points in mining etc.

Ultima Online and Eve Online are both examples of functional skill systems, yet it's hard to tell you which to look at as we don't know how this skill system will be implemented. The examples in UO and Eve differ greatly from one another.

Your link doesn't work. Pure skill systems don't work well for fantasy games because you get FotM builds (e.g. Tank Mages in UO) and pure skill systems are generally susceptible to macroing for leveling the skills (e.g. Darkfall). You want a combination of classes/levels/skills. I'll have to look around for the FAQ.

Tekeno wrote:

I think this worked really well and I'm puzzled why developers haven't included this in recent MMO releases.

Non-consensual PvP offers far more to a game than a simple mechanic governing who can attack who. It extends to resource allocation and entitlement, the working of the economy through the shift and loss of items etc.

As noted above I've got no problem with a 'Wild West' area. One of my big problems with all-over non-consensual PvP is that it is in no way 'realistic'. At no point in the history of mankind could you kill with impunity the way you can in a true all-over open PvP world.

Historically you could:

1. Faction kill.
2. War kill (variation of Faction kill really).
3. Open PvP in a particular setting (Wild West).
4. Duel.

So I'm okay with any of these four, but not with open PvP everywhere.

Goblinworks wants a wild west area: no problem.
Goblinworks wants faction/war killing (one city declaring war on another, whatever): no problem.
Goblinworks wants open PvP everywhere? I got a problem.

Quite simply, I have given up any hope that the Pathfinder online game will be playable - I *hate* the idea on non-consensual play.

Having designated areas where PVP is permitted - fine - I'll stay out of those areas. But if it covers the whole game, then I won't be there. End of story.

I won't say I'm out (depending on everything else) but I'm not a fun of all-over open PvP.

I am completely fine with areas of the game being open PvP (think wild west). Indeed I'm fine if those PvP areas have dungeons with high-quality loot (risk/reward) but like you I would prefer open PvP only on PvP-designated servers, with limited PvP on PvE focused servers.

Allowing players to travel where ever they please at a quicker, yet still time consuming place (whilst afk) is the best option. Prices would not converge across local markets as time constraints still exist, yet players would be free to travel with relative ease as opposed to on foot/horseback.

I'm actually quite cool with both AFK and offline travel as long as it is time appropriate. One thing that post-Vanilla WoW screwed up on was downtime. You need downtime in an MMO. With respect to offline travel - say you are in Nome, Alaska and want to travel to Miami, Florida (or rather the world equivalents) - before you log out you visit the local tavern, and you can pay X amount to travel with a caravan to Miami. It'll take 6 offline hours. You log out, when you log back in the next day you're in the tavern in 'Miami'

Per your post above. Pathfinder RPG has classes/levels/xp. What am I missing? What FAQ are you referring to?

True though in the long run, instant travel still needs to have limits as well. I think it would be interesting if each individual kingdom/city had their own economies. IE town A has a low price of potions, but a high price of weapons, town B has the opposite, and thus merchants can make a living traveling between cities taking advantage of this fact. Once you throw in instant travel, you get an instantaneous universal price globally, because people will be able to instantly jump to the city that has it cheapest, and thus things will only be crafted in cities that specializes in them, there will be no import/export business etc... Personally I'm in favor of making teleport either expensive or impractical if even added.

1. I would love to see individual economies because it leads to something that I've never really seen in an MMO. True merchant tradiing as a profession (think Elite).

2. Instant travel should be limited to certain classes (think Druids and Wizards in EQ). Again you want unique classes that matter - one way you make unique classes is you give unique abilities to classe ;-) Feign Death to monks, Taunts to warriors, Teleports to Wizzies, etc.

Added discussion thread for Goblinworks Blog: A Journey of a Thousand Miles Begins with a Single Step.

You need to rethink one aspect of your business plan. Think facebook here.

People like to play with friends.

Gamer X gets an invite and likes the game.

He tells his friends Y and Z. They try to join but the game is capped.

Gamer X ends up leaving the game because he can't play with friends Y and Z.

You need modify the plan roughly as follows:

1. 4,500 new players to start.

All these players get 2-3 friendvites.

At the end of the month you see how many friendvites have been used ( let's say 2,000) and how many people are no longer logging in.

Say 2,000 friendvites have been used, and 1,000 are no longer logging in.

Total population at the end of month 2 is 5,500 (4,500 - 1,000 + 2,000).
Invites for month too will then be 3,500. These new invites also get the 2-3 friendvites, at the end of month 2 you again compute current player base and that determines invites for month3.

Cheers

You pretty much described the way I want to see this game go.

I'm tired of the world of warcraft, rift and everquest model. I yearn for a sandbox MMO that can give me that same sense of adventure that I get with Table top games. A game that isn't 89 levels of content that you will only see once because once you hit 90 you will be doing the same instanced pvp and the same instanced dungeons, never to see the persistent world again.

Here's to the future, whatever it brings.

I think it is a mistake to lump EQ and WoW together. Original EQ had a far different model from WoW's rush to the endgame.

Leveling mattered - dungeon's weren't instanced. It took time to get to 20 and 30 and 40 and etc. That was months and months of content - far different from where we are now with WoW where the only game is the endgame.

I'm certainly willing to pay for a beta of a MMO if at least some of the following are implemented (roughly in importance).

1. Combat.

Combat should include VG-style Offensive & Defensive Target. OT/DT makes a lot of things easier, in particular healing.

2. Non-instanced content.

The majority of content should be non-instanced and competitive especially given the size of the population you're talking about. I am not opposed to rare instanced content (e.g. special class quest like in LOTRO or certain raid content). Nor I am I opposed to having some Boss/Raid mobs be summonable mobs as opposed to contested (VG's way to balance non-instanced).

3. Unique classes with unique roles in the group.

Rift made a huge mistake with its multi-class system. I know very little about Pathfinder (but a lot about old school AD&D and MMOs) but classes need to be unique and have unique roles: monks as pullers, fighers as tanks, mages as DPS. You want to incentivize people to group for content.

This is not to say that you shouldn't have classes that can solo (e.g. the EQ Necro) but you should balance solo ability with group utility.

Example (from original EQ): The Necro was the best soloer but the least needed in the group/raid. Warriors were terrible soloers but crucial to a group or raid. That's good balane.

3. Long XP curve.

The game should begin at level 1. None of the WoW - level to max and then cycle through the same 2 endgame dungeons and endgame raids. Original EQ or VG leveling curve. Six months to cap is a good yardstick.

4. Items that matter.

End the loot pinanta. Magic items should be rare and powerful and should last. No replacing everything on your paperdoll every level.
Bring back clickies and proc weapons. Levitation cloaks, Rocket books, Swords with fire procs, and Swords with slow procs.

5. Non-adventuring leveling (Crafting, Diplomacy, Trading, Mentoring, Player Housing)

If you're building a world after you've built the classes & combat system and worked on adventuring leveling, you need to start working on what's been termed 'horizontal' advancement. That is on ability sets that expand what the individual can do.

Examples include: crafting, VG-style diplomacy, a trading game (no global AH) and of course things like player housing.

6. Factions that matter, soft-factioning for player races.

Again back to EQ style factions. Factions should be hard to grind and matter but the WoW can't talk to the other side BS had to go. You should be able to group with anyone regardless of faction (though if you group with the Dark Elf and make the mistake of following them into their hometown, you should end up dead.

7. Death penalties.

Death should cause XP loss or XP debt.

8. Travel.

Travel should be slow to start but there should be means to speed up: SoW, mounts, and ultimately classes with teleport abilities. Various skills should increase speed (riding skill, swimming skill, flying skill if there are flying moutns).

As a general rule you want to set a low baseline for everyhing (starting skills, travel speed, etc.) and move up slowly from there. Having someone give you a free SOW (or equivalent) when you're a level 2 monk should matter.

With the long slow death of VG, the age of EQ, the failure of EQ2 and the likely failure of EQ Next there is a lot of room for a new non-theme part MMO. VG had 200,000 box sales, that shows the interest level for a great 'old-style' game.

I wish you all the best (break a leg as they say) and look forward to beta testing your game. I'll certainly mention it on some of the old VG forums.

Cheers

Tad10/Surface