Goblin Squad Member
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Something that just occured to me, with Paying Players, what should we (and yes, assuming I can get a slot in the game, I will be pumping my money in) be getting for that extra $15-20 in Goblinwork's pocket?
Here are a few ideas, and I hope we can debate these and future ideas as workable, plausible or just broken.
Greater Ability Scores:
Piecemeal Accounts (paying for certain things but others are free-to-play) should gain a +2 to two ability scores. Full Accounts should gain +2 to four ability scores.
Increased Skill Improvements:
Piecemeal Accounts gain 5% bonus to leveling their skills. Full Accounts should possibly gain a 15% or maybe even a 20% to leveling their skills, meaning a Paid Account will allow the player to, if not increase their 'level' faster than a free-to-play Account or a Piecemeal Account, then allow them to 'branch out' in those skills, meaning they can level 7 skills in the time it would take a FtP Account would take to level 6.
Now, here comes the idea I am fairly certain will result in the torches and pitch-forks.
Buying Gold.
Now, before the Forumites tear me limb from limb, it is inevitable the greasy, foul tentacles of the Gold-Farmers will inevitably sink into Pathfinder Online. By all means, fight them tooth and nail, but for players who want their gold now, being able to buy it safely from Paizo should be an option, and should hopefully undercut any attempt by the Goldfarmers to get a toehold into the game's economy, thereby making it extremely impractical and highly uneconomical to attempt to sell gold to players via a third party (Gold Farmers).
I know I certainly wouldn't object to being able to start a character with some additional gold in my pocket. Maybe a $1 = 10 gold, to a limit of 1000 gold (100 dollars) per month limit per account. Buying Gold should come with an agreement that Players buying the Gold will not go out and attempt to destabilize the Game Economy with malicious intent.
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Goblin Squad Member
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My initial reaction to both of those is no. The idea that one can pay to win should be avoided at all costs as this would drive away players who largely wished to play on a free to play basis. Don't forget that this will most likely be a very competitive game; by allowing such boosts to skill gain and greater ability scores, your alienating every player who is not willing to subscribe as their capacity to compete is diminished. In the age where F2P is washing over us like a tsunami, the market is vastly aware of/alienates itself from PvP games in which RL currency can offer an unfair advantage.
Subscription benefits that I would include would be:
Extra character slots.
Ability to train two characters simultaneously.
Only subscribers can establish a guild of greater than say 10 people(?). Only subscribers can obtain a guild bank?
Greater element of customization and larger amount of aesthetic designs in crafting weapons and armour or building houses or boats.
Access to premium content to adventure in (which does not offer god like items in contrast to standard content).
Access to premium prestige classes/badges.
Etc
Basically, all of the meat of the really interesting content should be offered to subscribers or in purchasable expansions.
The benefits should be worth the cost, yet should not impair a free players ability to compete with others players within the game. The benefits should be strictly limited to utility features and cosmetic additions.
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Goblin Squad Member
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From another thread....
Free To Play does not mean "you have the same experience as someone who pays to play". It means there is a way to play the game for free.
That way will be limited, less powerful, and harder than paying. But people will still do it, primarily as a way of "trying before they buy", or using a free account for easy, simple things like moving limited quantities of stuff between locations via a safe route.
People who pay via MTX and people who pay via subscriptions will find their experiences roughly equal when they pay the same amount, the MTX experience will be more limited, less powerful and harder when they pay less. If they pay more, mostly they'll get bling, or access to content that subscribers can pay for if they want it as well (like an adventure module, for example).
Equality of experience between paying players and non-paying players will not be a feature of Pathfinder Online.
Multiple characters training on a single account will not reduce griefing, multiboxing, or any other behavior that you don't like beyond one player, one character. Sorry, but there's no way to stop it mechanically, and trust me, every idea you have has been tried. An idea that would actually work would revolutionize the internet, and would make you a stone cold billionaire. MMOs wouldn't be your customers. Amazon, Google, and eBay would. On the internet, nobody knows you're a dog.
We're selling you training time and access to skill trees. So you won't get a lot of it for free, regardless of how many characters you have on an account.
RyanD
The thing that I worry about is if F2P'ers buy permanent access to things that Subscribers get for free while they're subscribing, this can end up punishing Subscribers who then switch to F2P for a while, because suddenly they no longer have access to all the things that the F2P who paid a fraction of what they've paid does have access to.
That said, I read "We're selling you training time and access to skill trees" quite literally.
I would like to see something along these lines.
Assume:
1. Roughly 720 hours per month of Skill Progression possible.
2. Permanent access to different Skill Trees costs some number of Goblin Points.
3. Bling, Clickies, etc. also cost varying amounts of Goblin Points.
Subscribers, for $15/mo, or $10/mo for bulk subscription, gets all 720 hours of Skill Progression, full access to the Skill Trees, with X free Goblin Points to spend however they'd like, and the ability to purchase more if they want, but they would realistically only do so to purchase Bling, etc. Any Skill Tree they've already earned any points in is permanently unlocked for them.
Free-Grazers can spend $25 to unlock 750 hours of Skill Progression, that they can use whenever, so they don't need to worry about having their next skill queued up. They must purchase Goblin Points to unlock certain Skill Trees and to buy Bling, etc.
I believe you will start out only able to earn Skill Points on one character per Account. Personally, I would like to see the cost to add a second character who's able to earn concurrent Skill Progression be slightly less than the cost of an additional account, but that's probably just a personal bias, and may not really matter.
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Goblin Squad Member
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DC Universe Online actually has three levels of membership, free, Premium and Legendary. Legendary is the subscription that gets you everything, while Premium applies as long as you have spent 5 or more dollars on the game. So if you go free for a while, you drop to Premium and still get more than the regular free players, like more character slots, trading and such. PFO could do something like this.
Goblinworks Executive Founder
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More character slots, more usable character slots (Indications are that a subscriber account will gain skill points on every character), while lesser accounts might not.
Ability to join a player faction, ability to found a player faction, more inventory/bank vault storage.
Flat-out direct mechanical benefits are a stupid idea. Selling gold, in and of itself, will destabilize the in-game economy, as will allowing RMT for gold. RMT for gold will happen anyway, but should be minimized by ingame and metagame sanctions.
Purely cosmetic changes should either be automatically available to all subscribers, or available to everyone at the same price. I like the idea of giving subscribers 'goblin points' each month, which are only used for cosmetic effects and can be purchased by anybody.
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Goblin Squad Member
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... Indications are that a subscriber account will gain skill points on every character...
I don't think that's accurate.
From another thread:
You will almost certainly be able to train skills on more than one character per account. Doing so almost certainly will not be free.
Actually, rereading that now, I guess that's not inconsistent with what you've said. It's certainly "not free" to maintain a subscription.
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Goblin Squad Member
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The best solution, IMO, is in game trade of MT currency for regular in-game currency.
This is a bad idea. In this scenario, a player can purchase a large quantity of 'Goblin Coins' for real life cash and then sell these through in game markets. Like with Plex in Eve Online, this allows a scenario of paying to win as real life currency can heavily influences in game buying power. Alliances in Eve have bought their way to power and continue to do so.
The counter argument to this is that gold farmers will always fill the gap if Goblin Coins or 'Plex' was never implemented. Funnily enough, CCP heavily monitor in game transactions and buying ISK (Eve currency) illegitimately is very difficult in Eve as the ISK transfer will be recorded, marked, investigated, removed and then a warning will be issued on your account.
It's nothing more than another stream of income for the developers and is hazardous in a competitive game.
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Goblinworks Executive Founder
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... Indications are that a subscriber account will gain skill points on every character...I don't think that's accurate.
From another thread:
You will almost certainly be able to train skills on more than one character per account. Doing so almost certainly will not be free.Actually, rereading that now, I guess that's not inconsistent with what you've said. It's certainly "not free" to maintain a subscription.
From the 'single account' thread:
Just tell me that my ~$15 per month gets me substantially equivalent treatment as having two subscriptions totaling $30, and I'll be happy. ...
You'll be happy.
My conclusion from that is that one subscription account will be able to train just as well as two.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I hope free play has a soft cap to training...maybe at 50%-80% what it would take to reach a capstone skill, and a debuff decreasing training rate by the same percentage. But, this goes hand in hand with my hope that players of all levels are useful and can contribute in PvP and PvE.
I hope subscribers have access to everything. I quit LOTRO when they switched to the P2P and even though I was a subscriber, I had to P2P for things I could do for free the day before. This made me very upset and I will never play a P2P game that is like this. P2P is to me an alternative to subscription for those who do not want to pay a subscription. They can pay less by only paying for what they use. Requiring me to do both will make me quit (or never even start).
P2P gets access to buy the right to level at normal speed and/or buy advancement beyond the softcap...or allow leveling on more than 1 character.
I do not see how they can require a P2P for content in a sandbox which is hopefully, by definition, full of player made content. It would be stupid (in my opinion) to limit the free or P2P ability to contribute to that player driven content since that ends up driving the content for the subscribers as well. The more content you can have players make themselves, the less themepark the devs have to build.
EDIT: I can see everyone, even subscribers, having to pay extra for non-play content such as additional leveling characters.
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Goblin Squad Member
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But at the same time they can't have a business model where everything is unlocked by paying for one month of game time. I mean I was annoyed that I couldn't play my mastermind in CoV now that it's FtP, but it's not actually worse then simply not being able to play.
Sorry, I am not familiar with CoV and LOTRO is the only P2P I have ever played...and even then that was only for the 2 weeks it took me to get really irritated at the new lack of content that my $15 had previously been good enough to cover. Point being, I am not sure what you mean. I don't understand how your example illustrates why they can't have that business model.
If it is because they can make more money the other way, well then good luck to them. Spending half their development time on a fancy P2P marketplace will be obvious...and a game killer for me.
EDIT: It is actually worse than just being able to play for me...I am looking for somewhere I can move to and make/bring friends. I am not going to move to someplace that constantly annoys me due to an obvious intrusive "insert another quarter" P2P system. Just let me pay my $15 a month to enjoy the game.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I quit LOTRO when they switched to the P2P and even though I was a subscriber, I had to P2P for things I could do for free the day before.
Can you give a specific example of something you lost access to when they implemented the free-to-play system?
I played before and after and I actually thought they did a really good job, except for the problem I've mentioned several times where you could subscribe for years, then stop subscribing and suddenly not have access to any of the content that the F2P'ers got with just a fraction of the money you'd spent.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I quit LOTRO when they switched to the P2P and even though I was a subscriber, I had to P2P for things I could do for free the day before.Can you give a specific example of something you lost access to when they implemented the free-to-play system?
I played before and after and I actually thought they did a really good job, except for the problem I've mentioned several times where you could subscribe for years, then stop subscribing and suddenly not have access to any of the content that the F2P'ers got with just a fraction of the money you'd spent.
No, sorry I do not really remember specifics. The only specific I remember was something about travel options...and it also might have been my frustration with characters having access to stuff their player bought with RL money. This is absurd to me...and, I did not like that the catalog thing kept popping up. I did not like DDO after they switched either...but again can not give specifics. Maybe it is only a dislike of the immersion break of having a catalog keep popping up showing me all the great things my character can have if I only give 2 USD more...and the frustration of knowing the character next to me probably did just that. I will never buy the crap and therefore will always be substandard. I suppose I should not have used an example I do not really remember. I will shut up about this topic now and just wait and see where it goes, maybe I am wrong.
But, I will not buy the P2P stuff, if this leaves me substandard or handicapped, I would prefer to go someplace that does not sell in-game gear/benefits for RL cash.
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Goblinworks Executive Founder
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The biggest issue is the perception of unfairness associated with RMT purchases which increase power: If it is possible to get a more powerful character because I spend more than standard (more than a subscription), then everyone who doesn't spend more than standard who encounters someone more powerful then them will have a tendency to attribute it to RMT. Even if the other character is playing under all the same limitations that they are.
That creates the perception of an unfair playing field; since player decisions are based purely on their perceptions, it has the same effect on the number of paying customers as an actual unfair playing field.
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Goblin Squad Member
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The biggest issue is the perception of unfairness associated with RMT purchases which increase power: If it is possible to get a more powerful character because I spend more than standard (more than a subscription), then everyone who doesn't spend more than standard who encounters someone more powerful then them will have a tendency to attribute it to RMT. Even if the other character is playing under all the same limitations that they are.
That creates the perception of an unfair playing field; since player decisions are based purely on their perceptions, it has the same effect on the number of paying customers as an actual unfair playing field.
Guilty as charged...and upon further reflection there are many things I could see paying extra for...and would not mind others doing likewise - cosmetic stuff. How about offering mount decoration or armor gilt. Or, maybe even offer services such as player/clan designed emblems, tabards, standards, banners to be added to game...after an approval process (that is what you are paying for). I could even see the approval process being done by players who volunteer their time and GMs are involved when the players voice any objection (why not have the players who are experts in the lore of the world do this...many will offer just to keep their RP "pure").
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Goblin Squad Member
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I like EvE's PLEX system: Being able to buy ingame currency for real money. At the very least, it sets a price cap on what gold farmers can charge, cutting into their profits. However, EvE also lets players lose frightening amounts of ingame cash during PvP, which is the only thing stopping inflation from spiraling out of control. (Though I don't remember the details, my favorite example of this is the one guy during one of EvE's big nullsec wars who lost four titans in one war... that comes out to about $24,000 USD in ingame money... enough to buy a real car!)
On the plus side for the dev team, it helps cut down on gold farming by restricting the prices they can charge, and makes them extra cash off of rich and bored players. (As Dilbert's pointy-haired boss once said, "We'll target the lazy rich.")
However, it can result in massive inflation due to rich players flooding the market with gold, the only solution to which is making some big money sinks. EvE does it by, effectively, causing you to lose most of your equipment when you die. (I'm not a big fan of this method, but I know many people are.) Maybe PFO could use parts of EvE's Sovereignty system as a gold sink, by requiring weekly or monthly costs of gold or materials to keep player kingdoms running.
Back to the original topic, I like how LOTRO handles F2P, microtransactions, and P2P. (For people not in the know, I'm going to explain LOTRO's payment system here, so if you already know about it, skip down a few paragraphs.) First off, they don't restrict player levels or areas of the map. Technically, you could level all the way to level cap just by running skirmishes and grinding monsters. However, all the quests in each zone cost Turbine Points (microtransaction currency). So you can explore Angmar all you like, but to do any quests in there, you have to buy the Quest Pack for Angmar. And since quests give the lion's share of exp, items, and gold, you really are missing out if you don't buy any. Turbine Points can be spent on other things: Mounts, exp boosts, new skirmishes, character slots, and lots and lots of cosmetic clothing.
What's really interesting, though, is how players earn TP. The main way to get TP is, of course, to buy it with real money. Subscribers to LOTRO get 500 TP/month, as well as having almost everything automatically unlocked. However, there's another way to get TP: Earn deeds (achievements, merit badges, whatever other MMO's call them). For every deed you earn, you get anywhere from 5 to 20 TP, based on how hard the deed is. So not only can you grind to level cap, you can also grind TP, given lots of patience! Several people grind TP by creating a character, earning most of the low-level deeds, deleting the character, and repeat. Eventually, they have enough to buy quest packs and all the other stuff. There are quite a few people who have unlocked everything in the game, effectively becoming subscribers, just by spending months grinding TP.
In addition to F2P and P2P, there's a middle account status: Premium. Totally F2P accounts are just that: Free. P2P accounts pay a monthly subscription. However, if you aren't actively subscribing, but you've spent any amount of real money (a past subscription, buying TP, etc.), your account becomes Premium, and automatically unlocks a few nice things (ability to use the Auction House, two extra Character slots... there's a few other perks.) That's a powerful incentive to subscribe for a month, or buy some TP: Even after the subscription expires, you keep a few extra bonuses that a true F2P account doesn't have.
Well, that's enough explaining how the system works. As it relates to PFO, I'd like them to use a system like LOTRO's, or at least their message: It is technically possible to get everything in the game without paying, but it's really hard to do. That actually interests me much more than most other MMO's, which basically put toll booths at every new zone (and even new level) unless you're a subscriber. Yes, I could grind all the way to level cap without paying; there's nothing stopping me from doing that, but I value my time more than that, and it doesn't sound like much fun. I'd rather take that time to work at my job, and use the money I earn to subscribe, or buy MT points.
To summarize: If this game is going to have EvE-like skill training, than for the love of whichever god you worship, DON'T TIE SKILL TRAINING RATES TO MONEY. You can lock certain skill trees if you want, but don't make F2P train slower than P2P. That's going to seriously hinder someone who wants to try the game out for a few weeks before they buy.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Arbalester PLEX is far more subtle and powerful than you think.
What PLEX really does is let players who are very good at earning ISK play for free. It does not introduce any ISK into the economy at all. PLEX has no effect on inflation. All the ISK exchanged for PLEX was already in the economy via player production - PLEX is not an ISK faucet.
It played havok with the RMT sellers and they still have not found a satisfactory way to recover. If you give players the choice between paying to pay for someone else to play for free and getting ISK in exchange, or cheating and risking malware and identity theft, most players will pick the legitimate option.
The RMT guys also produced way more ISK than normal play activity would have done. They typically farm huge fleets of bots for the purpose of making low-risk, steady ISK income. The market for ISK created a demand for that level of farming. In competition with each other they engaged in price wars - lowering the dollar cost of ISK to try and undercut each other and flooding the game with ISK. With PLEX in play there's a lower volume of business for the RMT farmers and so they find it harder to get the economy of scale they need to make their business work. On the other hand, when you've produced enough ISK to buy a PLEX, you stop. There's no need to over-produce ISK. So the amount of ISK being produced post-PLEX reflects those changes.
It also had a tremendous effect on leveling the playing field for territorial warfare. Many of the largest Alliances had worked out deals with bot farmers to use their protected space in exchange for wholesale transfers of ISK, giving them a huge economic advantage vs. opponents who might have wanted to try to topple them. PLEX gives opposing Alliances a way to equal their targets' ISK production.
And for weekend warriors (like me) who don't have the time or patience to build up huge logistical networks, PLEX let me get the ISK needed to buy a few good ships, equip them adequately, and then run around having fun without feeling that any wrong move would waste weeks of grinding. On the other hand the guys who did the grinding were grateful that they had a way to play for free - so the population of EVE increased by having more weekend warriors and more free players. It was win-win for everyone.
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Goblinworks Executive Founder
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Ended up Googling to figure out Eve's PLEX vs ISK economy.
Basically, a PLEX is an in-game item that is fungible with game-time; For the cost of a 60-day subscription, you can get 2 PLEX that can be redeemed for 30 days of subscription. PLEX can be traded for ISK (Eve's actual currency) or anything else, at market rates.
ISK is acquired by mining, and is destroyed/consumed in the production of ships and equipment. The stuff that ISK buys/makes can get destroyed.
The important thing is that wealth leaves Eve's economy roughly as fast as it comes in; just because a corp has been there forever doesn't mean it has the largest fleet. Just because it had the largest fleet yesterday doesn't mean it has a fleet today.
Mr. Dancey- How much would you say you want Eve's concepts to shape PFO's? Do you want the things that characters get to be easily taken away, taken away with difficulty, or never taken away? Do you want there to be a significant need for players who gather and transport the raw materials that other players use for the flashy content, enough so that wealthier players can hire other players in a fairly direct manner? Or should all of the content be interesting and engaging enough on its own that there is no significant market for farmed resources?
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Arbalester PLEX is far more subtle and powerful than you think.
What PLEX really does is let players who are very good at earning ISK play for free. It does not introduce any ISK into the economy at all. PLEX has no effect on inflation. All the ISK exchanged for PLEX was already in the economy via player production - PLEX is not an ISK faucet.
It played havok with the RMT sellers and they still have not found a satisfactory way to recover. If you give players the choice between paying to pay for someone else to play for free and getting ISK in exchange, or cheating and risking malware and identity theft, most players will pick the legitimate option.
The RMT guys also produced way more ISK than normal play activity would have done. They typically farm huge fleets of bots for the purpose of making low-risk, steady ISK income. The market for ISK created a demand for that level of farming. In competition with each other they engaged in price wars - lowering the dollar cost of ISK to try and undercut each other and flooding the game with ISK. With PLEX in play there's a lower volume of business for the RMT farmers and so they find it harder to get the economy of scale they need to make their business work. On the other hand, when you've produced enough ISK to buy a PLEX, you stop. There's no need to over-produce ISK. So the amount of ISK being produced post-PLEX reflects those changes.
It also had a tremendous effect on leveling the playing field for territorial warfare. Many of the largest Alliances had worked out deals with bot farmers to use their protected space in exchange for wholesale transfers of ISK, giving them a huge economic advantage vs. opponents who might have wanted to try to topple them. PLEX gives opposing Alliances a way to equal their targets' ISK production.
And for weekend warriors (like me) who don't have the time or patience to build up huge logistical networks, PLEX let me get the ISK needed to buy a few good ships, equip them adequately, and then run around having...
I really, really hope this means that PFO will offer something similar.
I understand the frustration that some people feel when they think another player has an "unfair" advantage because they paid real money to get some crafting resources, or whatever.
Now, please try to understand the frustration other people when when they think another player has an "unfair" advantage because they have seemingly endless hours to spend grinding away farming crafting resources, or whatever.
Time is money. Having a sanctioned way for players to buy in-game cash will stymie the gold-sellers, who wreak havoc on game economies. And it gives players who don't have the option to invest time in the game another avenue for investment.
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Goblinworks Executive Founder
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The fact that resources are limited is vital to the fact that they are resources. What PLEX really offer is a sanctioned way for one player to cover the subscription cost of another player. Since PLEX are themselves rare and have cost, they can serve as a means of exchange, even though they have no value in game.
The real finite resource is time; buying gold is buying the time it would take you to get that gold yourself. Selling gold is a way of selling the time it took to get that gold. Trading PLEX for gold is nothing more than covering some of the carrying costs (subscription fees).
On that note, Eve's system doesn't sell any item with mechanical benefits in-game, so I have no basis for objecting to it being available in a game I play. I am financially and philosophically in a position where I might choose to pay for a subscription belonging to a friend or guildmate, even though I don't think I would do it for a stranger.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Mr. Dancey- How much would you say you want Eve's concepts to shape PFO's?
Call me Ryan. :)
We want to have the kind of robust market economy that EVE has and that means that loss of items will be commonplace.
I want to see lots of people harvesting, transporting, crafting, and selling.
There are parts of EVE's economic system I don't like, for example the scamming that goes on constantly, or the fact that certain players have an unequal advantage by having access to certain blueprints that are unavailable to others. I'm also not a fan of the way the moon goo system works, due to the way it creates economic high and low value areas which never change, making some territory simply better to control in all cases than others.
I also don't like the fact that decimal points and commas are used to confuse people - there's going to be round numbers in Pathfinder Online auctions, damnit!
I don't know yet if we'll be able to support customizable items or items with histories. EVE is optimized for speed and even so there are delays within its architecture that can be infuriating. One of those optimizations is to keep the size of the item table as small as possible by not having unique items. That's something that we'll experiment with once we've got our middleware options finalized.
RyanD
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Goblin Squad Member
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Mr. Dancey- How much would you say you want Eve's concepts to shape PFO's?Call me Ryan. :)
We want to have the kind of robust market economy that EVE has and that means that loss of items will be commonplace.
I want to see lots of people harvesting, transporting, crafting, and selling.
There are parts of EVE's economic system I don't like, for example the scamming that goes on constantly, or the fact that certain players have an unequal advantage by having access to certain blueprints that are unavailable to others. I'm also not a fan of the way the moon goo system works, due to the way it creates economic high and low value areas which never change, making some territory simply better to control in all cases than others.
I also don't like the fact that decimal points and commas are used to confuse people - there's going to be round numbers in Pathfinder Online auctions, damnit!
I don't know yet if we'll be able to support customizable items or items with histories. EVE is optimized for speed and even so there are delays within its architecture that can be infuriating. One of those optimizations is to keep the size of the item table as small as possible by not having unique items. That's something that we'll experiment with once we've got our middleware options finalized.
RyanD
Very nice, There was quite a bit of debate on destroyable gear etc... but IMO I also agree, it is a necesity to keep the economy working, and it is necessary to keep from having an infinant power creep like you wind up with in most theme park MMOs, where it always about the next big thing, and no time expended at all towards protecting what you have.
Do you know if you are leaning towards destroying things as a gradual over time (say sword wears out over X number of battles), or as a solid you die, your gear shatters type of deal, or maybe a "you die, your gear takes 50-75% damage, and is lootable by your opponent (simultaneously rewards your opponent, but at the same time gives them something that is already 3/4ths broken).
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Goblinworks Executive Founder
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We want to have the kind of robust market economy that EVE has and that means that loss of items will be commonplace.
I want to see lots of people harvesting, transporting, crafting, and selling.
There are parts of EVE's economic system I don't like, for example the scamming that goes on constantly, or the fact that certain players have an unequal advantage by having access to certain blueprints that are unavailable to others. I'm also not a fan of the way the moon goo system works, due to the way it creates economic high and low value areas which never change, making some territory simply better to control in all cases than others.
I think the last problem there can be mitigated by having a variety of resources: Timber and boards, ore and metal, wheat and flour. Finished goods would have at least three steps: Mining, refining, and producing.
There's no reason why those can't be physically separated; coal mining or charcoal production might not be near ore mining, so there is a supply chain to the smelter and forge for metal goods; timber production has to move around, and windmills or watermills can't always be near the farmland. I'm not sure how to describe the mechanism for getting magical things, but I imagine that things like "A strip of hide from a displacer beast" will be acquired in the immediately obvious manner.
You're well supported in asking that prices be "12 GP, 50 SP" instead of "12.5" or "12.500".
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Goblinworks Executive Founder
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I love deteriorating gear. All I want in that case are tiers of conditions based on how deteriorated an item is (Good, Moderate, Poor) and when it breaks it is unrecoverable. Which also brings me to repairs, which I think should be significant in cost. Like 75% of the difference between full value and damaged value or some other function of the sort. But significantly cheaper if you can do it yourself, costing time and required materials instead.
On the original topic, though: I think the difference between free-to-play and paying players should be access to developer created content. Free to play doesn't necessarily mean free to own, and I suspect that free to play will mean you buy the game and don't pay a subscription. Base functionality of the game should not be affected. Money should purchase options, content, bells, and whistles rather than power or enhanced characters. If you buy a sandbox, you make your own fun. But you can always pay for more things to put in your sandbox like awesome buckets for building neater sand castles. Or you could pay to increase the size of your sandbox. But you should always be playing in the sand regardless of the features of your sandbox.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I think the last problem there can be mitigated by having a variety of resources: Timber and boards, ore and metal, wheat and flour. Finished goods would have at least three steps: Mining, refining, and producing.
This. Don't allow a single area to be useful for the full supply chain, or even a large part of it.
I never liked SWG's implementation of having different resources pop up in different areas. It just seemed silly.
Having an area that is a good source of Ore, but not really useful for much else, seems a better solution to me.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I think the last problem there can be mitigated by having a variety of resources: Timber and boards, ore and metal, wheat and flour. Finished goods would have at least three steps: Mining, refining, and producing.This. Don't allow a single area to be useful for the full supply chain, or even a large part of it.
I never liked SWG's implementation of having different resources pop up in different areas. It just seemed silly.
Having an area that is a good source of Ore, but not really useful for much else, seems a better solution to me.
Aye, and have at least some of the resources that go well together, be far enough appart that even a large group can have no hope of stretching their empire large enough to maintain all of it. I would like to see very large trade routes opening, in which someone has to pass through 2-3 different alliences territory to get the best equipment, leading to interesting treaties, trade relations etc...
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Goblin Squad Member
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Stop posting ideas everyone!!! The more good ideas I see, the more I wish the game opened tomorrow. :-)
Of course, if a guild became big enough they could potentially control multiple production sites.
Although, I think we have gotten offtopic based on the thread title. heh.
Multiple I agree with, just not everything, a large guild should be able to control several miles most likely, but getting too large should have drawbacks (too many boarders etc...), guilds should be able to have a few resources, but never enough to be anywhere close to self sufficiant without some kind of partnership with another group waay outside of their boarders.
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Goblinworks Executive Founder
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I think the last problem there can be mitigated by having a variety of resources: Timber and boards, ore and metal, wheat and flour. Finished goods would have at least three steps: Mining, refining, and producing.This. Don't allow a single area to be useful for the full supply chain, or even a large part of it.
I never liked SWG's implementation of having different resources pop up in different areas. It just seemed silly.
Having an area that is a good source of Ore, but not really useful for much else, seems a better solution to me.
The idea of 'different resources in different areas' is good, but SWG's implementation WAS unintuitive and nonsensical. The variation in material qualities between sources was good, but since virtually everything was based on 'overall quality', there was little situational use.
Imagine if a mithril vein had unique hardness and brittleness, with harder metal being more brittle in roughly a constant-product manner. A hard blade holds an edge better, and can cut through softer armor much better, but is damaged more easily. Softer armor can be pierced more easily, but tends to be more malleable, and as such deforms more before it breaks from blunt weapons, or from blows that it turns.
I don't think we need or want detailed modeling of each blow (bruising the muscle and bruising the bone through the giant cave spider silk cloak), but we could have "The iron sword is deflected by the steel armor. The armor mitigates 100 points of damage, taking 10. The target takes 25 damage.The sword takes 10 damage in the attack.; The adamantine dagger pierces through the steel armor. The armor mitigates 5 points of damage, taking 25. the target takes 70 damage. The dagger takes 1 damage in the attack."
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Goblin Squad Member
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Find a way to add a GM to the experience for groups so that they can play a campaign for a few hours every couple of weeks, and charge for it.
Give them an extra character slot (or whatever) so that they can make a character just for that scheduled time, so they don't go level-crazy between sessions and leave group members behind.
I just always come back to the one real thing I find lacking in MMOs being the GM. I'm not sure how to make their presence work in-game, but I do know that I really notice their absence.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Find a way to add a GM to the experience for groups so that they can play a campaign for a few hours every couple of weeks, and charge for it.
This is a brilliant idea. Although, I would imagine the demand would far outstrip supply.
It would definitely require a very elaborate and mature toolset to allow the DM to manipulate the environment and the NPCs encountered. I'm not sure it would work in a persistent MMO, where other players might cry foul if a lenient DM is giving other players more powerful items or something. I think this will become much more likely when the toolset has evolved enough that non-developers can use them effectively, at which point I can see Paizo/Goblinworks selling low-end server software for hosting private adventures in Golarion.