So ... is it going to be open source?

[Jewelfox]

One of the big things that's set Paizo apart is that nearly everything they publish -- besides the "crown jewels" of Golarion and their stockpile of fantasy artwork -- is OGL-licensed, making it basically the gamer version of open-source.

So I'm asking this: Is Pathfinder Online going to be federated or open-source in any way?

Is it going to be like Neverwinter Nights, where we can start our own servers and bring characters between them?

Is it going to be like Saga of Ryzom (or Pathfinder Off-line) where the code's open-source but the setting and story are Paizo's?

Is it going to be like Second Life and OpenSim, where people can create their own addons for it?

I'm not saying we need to be allowed to cheat and/or break the shared world. But one reason Pathfinder -- and RPGs in general -- has done so well is because you don't have to be just a player. You can basically become a game developer as well, and create your own scenarios and share them with your friends. Or even make money off of them, especially with OGL-licensed content.

Is Pathfinder Online going to send us all back to being just players again?

[Scott Betts]

I cannot even imagine them making their assets available for public use like this, especially in a way that would undermine their revenue structure.

[Morgen]

Well they have a huge amount of work to do before they are even into that kind of thing I'd imagine, however they say a sandboxish style MMO with rollercoster addings, so perhaps there will be things you can do inside of the game to kind of GM an event or something like that planned.

[Mark Kalmes]

Hmm.. interesting. An unfortunate limit we will have is that we're using a third party engine for the game. Our modifications to the engine can't be open-sourced because we won't have the right to publish the engine source in the first place.

Paizo is always as open as possible. One model I think is interesting is A Tale in the Desert. With each season, the players are able to add a single rule and modify the core game in some way.

[DM_aka_Dudemeister]

My first and greatest request is to allow players to build their own quests/instances and dungeons. If you want to capture the spirit of Pathfinder and tabletop gaming it's this that will do it.

[Steel_Wind]

Tech risk is way too high on that stuff. Bad idea.

What I expect they are aiming for in terms of user input is to provide a canvas upon which the players can guild up and drive the game through aspects of competition which go beyond mere PvP on an endless respawning battlefield.

It's Kalmes and Dancey -- if you read "sandbox" and just thought "Kingmaker" -- you are seeing only one side of it. They want to bring EVE into this.

What they want is to provide an online world where the players get to decide how all of this is going to work. EVE Online is the model they are shooting for. That's where you will find your player creativity; through deciding, collectively, how the sandbox will be used for Gold n Glory, not in how the rides in the PF:O theme park will be designed.

[CBDunkerson]

A game doesn't have to be open source in order to allow player development. The same effect could be achieved by having a development kit interface... basically, let users (either all, those with a subscription, or some other subset) build their own maps, encounters, scenarios with provided tools and then run them on the Pathfinder Online servers.

They could invite in various people and run it more like a standard GM and players tabletop scenario... just greatly sped up because the GM doesn't have to describe what you see and the combat is all automated.

Obviously there would have to be controls to prevent people from building scenarios that just hand out tons of loot / xp and then taking that back to the wider game... but the user generated content could just be 'fire walled' so that nothing gets out. You can import a copy of a character IN, but nothing you do there changes the original in the main game.

One of the biggest problems that every MMO I have ever played has faced is simple scalability... there is NO way that a small game staff can continually generate enough new content or help organize enough collaborative player events to keep the attention span of a huge number of players. The more successful the game the more difficult it becomes to maintain. The logical solution would be to allow the players to amuse themselves. The sandbox idea supports that, but the greater the control players have the more they can exercise their creativity.

BTW, if Paizo does something like this then they could have a 'hall of online modules' that people have created that people can then play through. The best work or winners of periodic contests could be incorporated into the 'main world', et cetera. Tabletop RPGs have always been as much about the creativity of the GMs in coming up with infinite scenarios as that of the players in responding to them... yet computer RPGs have generally ignored the first half of that equation.

[Mark Kalmes]

Yeah, I think the player modules would be great. I have to admit that we'll be just focused on getting the core game out first though.

[Yammer]

I’m all for fans making modules or campaigns and a Hall of Adventures with witchgates or portals to extra dimensional worlds that players create. Then maybe the best ones become incorporated into the main world. It helps with content development and allows people to be creative.

[Jewelfox]

Okay, cool. So, long-term you want this to be sorta like Neverwinter Nights, then, with player-created modules and things. Or maybe Vendetta Online, with its Player Contribution Corps -- they do a really good job of cultivating their community over there, and making players feel like they have a stake in the game's ongoing development.

It's less than what I was hoping for, which was some kind of Second Life (or Pathfinder OGL) thing where players own their contributions, and can monetize them or even create their own worlds. That's kind of a big project in and of itself, though, and I get the impression this game is basically trying to capture a small part of Golarion rather than all the possibilities inherent in Pathfinder itself.

Either way, I'm looking forward to it and I wish you all luck! I know Paizo "defaults to open," as the people at Red Hat put it, and that's one reason I'm such a fan.

[Thomas Gordon]

I think an interesting idea would be to look at what games like City of Heroes or Star Wars Galaxies did with their player generated content systems. I'm particularly fond of SWG since it encourages people to play the game itself to be able to build quests. Taking it even farther in the future, incorporating player kingdoms or settlements and their surrounding lands into it so that they act is their own mini theme parks of player generated content and modules. That can act as a way to breath life into the settlements and even allow different player towns to interact. Imagine putting a quest NPC that you've made into your own town, then with the help of someone in another town, there is another NPC you go to and continue the quest, etc etc.

Getting things to work with the larger over wold might present issues, but having quest specific personal instanced dungeons and areas might be a solution, or putting in specific nodes that players can use for their quests. Say I build a quest and need a cave or house, I find one that has been put in the world as a usable node and it would create a customized instance when someone on my quest accessed but still be usable to anyone else for their own quests, but to a passer by or someone without a quest that used that node, it would just be a piece of nice scenery.

It presents some interesting and exciting possibilities.

Its a fair bit like how SWG does it, but I think Pathfinder presents a excellent way to deliver the content to players too. You could have Pathfinder Society guild leader NPC that would essentially act as a merchant selling/distributing the quests in the form of letters. A player chooses a particular one, opens it, and the quest is presented to them to start. Add in the ability to invite other players to participate in a quest you've chosen and I think you've got something that not only represents player modules and the Pathfinder Society, but also creates endless, player voted on, content.