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The newest Goblinworks blog entry is up! Discuss this entry, Adventure in the River Kingdoms, here.
Goblin Squad Member
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Awesome. My only reservation, and I am sure it is probably unfounded, is that it does seem a bit too EVE'ish with respect to active areas. You mention the ability to find new areas, or "dungeons" of various sorts, and that these will stay active for anyone who can find them (for a time)...does this mean you must fast travel to them, or that they actually exist as a location in the world and anyone who is roaming the world can also run across them? I certainly hope for the latter, but your description sounds like the former (like EVE).
This said, I am intrigued by the way you are handling resource harvesting. I hope guilds who "own" a particular region can build defenses on resource locations to assist in defense of the position as they mine deep. This will, as you suggest, spawn bigger and bigger mobs and would be another contribution of the "builders". It would be fun as a guild to get everyone online because you are going to mine spot x...and the miners pull as much as they can out of the node while the defenders man the defenses against wave after wave of ever stronger spawns.
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Love it.
Right now, I've only got one major concern. What if this game doesn't actually get made? I will be very dissapointed. :)
Sweet ^^
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Goblin Squad Member
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The sounds of all of these things is spectacular, and while I know it is a would be nice to have but not necessarily possible concept, if you can actually pull off the player modules concept will get you guys something that could become one of the best features in an MMO, my only thought is that when it comes to modules I do think that they should be designed more as a for fun take your character out kind of deal. Perhaps no reward at all (In addition to no equipment damage etc..) but simply a fun mini-game for people to play within, perhaps they could be referred to as simulations rather than reality due to the fact that they cannot be persistent as the rest of the world.
Actually come to think of it, I know you guys were against the idea of duels, but you know something like that allowing "war simulations", as a no cost no risk no reward option for allied nations to home in their tactical skills.
While in a sense I looove the idea of modules, I do question how the instanced effect will have on the persistent world, so IMO the best solution to that is, none at all.
Yes, more good design going on. When the PvE is designed with the Sandbox in mind, it makes me a happy gamer!
Oh and... on the hinted at player created content, I would like to offer a hearty, hooray! It would be a very cool idea if players could create and sell their own adventure modules for a game like Pathfinder Online. I've always enjoyed toolkits and would love to recreate a couple of my favorite bandit lairs. But also, think about players designing their own armor, clothes, furniture, weapons and buildings then selling them (or giving them) in an app store. UI and other mods could be done in a similar way. It represents a huge reservoir of content, revenue and community building. I hope you pursue this line of thinking.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Great blog post.
The more I read about this game the more I want it.
The idea of my actions generating content for others, such as resource gathering, sounds amazing to me.
Modules seem like a great plan as well. It sounds like a good direction for instanced content to go. I great way to present lore, story, and scripted encounters without stepping on the toes of the sandbox elements.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Ok, now that I've reread it, some more serious thoughts.
1. Can we get rid of the Hammer and Sickle for the Common Folk? It's way too reminiscent of the Communist flag, which will be a perpetual immersion-breaker. Maybe use a Shovel and Pitchfork instead?
2. "... each hex will likely have a list of things it needs to import and a list of things it can export..." sounds like we will indeed have both Buy and Sell orders on a more global market. Is the intention to create a market system like Eve's, where we can look for goods we can transport for a profit?
3. "Harvesting hazards" sound fantastic. Is there any thought yet to having the Harvesting hazards become more powerful and/or more frequent if the prior one was defeated? Or is the intention to allow effectively unlimited harvesting at a specific location, as long as you have the resources to defend it from the Harvesting hazards, which will be generally uniformly spaced out in time, and generally uniform in power?
4. "Ruins, Lairs, and Caverns" sounds like there's an attempt being made to give people plenty of stuff to do within the civilized hexes. Are "civilized areas" meant to be synonymous with "high security areas"? Or is it just meant to convey the level of settlement in the area? It sounds like if a group of players establishes a settlement in a totally unsecure area, and builds it up over time, then that area will gradually become a "civilized area" even if it stays totally unsecure with respect to PvP.
5. "Encampments" made me squee. There, it just made me squee again.
6. "Occasionally, when players finish with a PvE area, instead of being quietly removed by the game system, that area will instead open up for habitation by characters." I squeed again. You're absolutely right that we players will become incredibly attached to the world when we see it develop over time, and when we can remember the history of the land, that we were instrumental in shaping. However, it raises the question, will the PvE Watchtower we can inhabit be significantly different from the constructed Watchtower we can build? Or will we not really be able to build an equivalent structure?
7. "When conditions are dangerous, the common folk are less productive, less healthy and less numerous." I'm really curious how this will be implemented. Will we actually see them walking around, tending crops, dying in ditches?
8. "And there's even the chance that you might be able to create your own module content for other players—perhaps even on a for-profit basis." I've already said elsewhere I think there's a real opportunity here for letting 3rd parties create content like this. I'm very, very pleased to hear that y'all are thinking about how to make that work, and I'm looking forward to seeing what kind of tools evolve to meet those needs over the next decade or so. There's evidence all over the web that motivated users can and will create a lot of high-quality content for free just because they love what they're doing. If you give them the tools to do that in PFO, that will change the MMO world.
Great Blog post! A few things pop out though -
These are the classic set-piece adventuring experiences of many tabletop games. Call them "dungeons" for the sake of discussion. You will find these areas using abilities; once located they'll spawn on the map and be findable by anyone who travels to the correct location. If they are cleared, or if no character interacts with them for a fixed amount of time, they'll be removed from the game world automatically.
Most of the PvE content that you encounter will automatically be removed by the game after a certain period of time passes without any player interacting with it. In this way we can constantly present you with places to adventure that are fresh and ready for the PCs to venture forth and earn riches and glory.
Am I to believe that this means dungeons will be randomly generated in the interests of replayability?
Is this (along with the fact that you state Modules are likely instanced) also a confirmation that dungeons are not instanced or is an instance provided for anyone / any group who is capable of finding one before they despawn?
I quite like the idea of scouting out for dungeons - do the occasional one that I can alone but every so often finding one with incredibly powerful monsters and rushing back to town to find a group capable of taking it down.
As for the abilities used to find them - will this be similar to player input based tracking (such as the scanning in EVE) or will it just be an ability you click and it locates nearby ones on a map.
Wandering monsters: These are creatures you may encounter as you explore the world. Typically, the further you are from civilization, the more dangerous the monstrous creatures you'll encounter. These creatures are spawned into the game randomly, and if left unmolested for a certain period of time, they'll automatically despawn.
This line kept popping up throughout your post - "The further you are from civilization..."
Now that sounds interesting. Will it adapt to account for player made civilization or will these distances be pre-defined zones of hexes based on the world at launch? (ie similar to WoW zones and their unchanging level regions of repetitiveness)Will I maybe log out in a low-leveled monster zone and come back a month later to find that the nearby tower was destroyed and dragons now reign?
Also in the Sandbox Ecosystem graphic the 'People Who Make' have transport listed under them. Does this mean player based fast/ auto travel will be available?
Finally - You frequently compare hexes to EVE Solar Systems in the forums which brings up one concern for me. Is the world all one world ? Basically -
Will I be able to walk from one side of the world to the other without a loading screen or using fast travel of any kind if I so wished?
Will I be able to see a neighbouring castle from mine if I challenge my pc by setting the draw-distance high enough?
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Goblin Squad Member
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Finally - You frequently compare hexes to EVE Solar Systems in the forums which brings up one concern for me. Is the world all one world ? Basically -
Will I be able to walk from one side of the world to the other without a loading screen or using fast travel of any kind if I so wished?
This is the question I am left with too.
Chief Technical Officer
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1. Can we get rid of the Hammer and Sickle for the Common Folk? It's way too reminiscent of the Communist flag, which will be a perpetual immersion-breaker. Maybe use a Shovel and Pitchfork instead?
The icons in the blog are just for the blog, and won't be in the game. We'll have proper graphic designers make all the stuff you see in the game.
Valuable lesson learnt from the Sandbox Ecosystem diagram by the way -
The People Who Make have coins pointing at them from both directions.
That is all. xD
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Goblin Squad Member
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1. Can we get rid of the Hammer and Sickle for the Common Folk? It's way too reminiscent of the Communist flag, which will be a perpetual immersion-breaker. Maybe use a Shovel and Pitchfork instead?The icons in the blog are just for the blog, and won't be in the game. We'll have proper graphic designers make all the stuff you see in the game.
You know I'm going to really latch onto that "won't be in the game", don't you?
1. Can we get rid of the Hammer and Sickle for the Common Folk? It's way too reminiscent of the Communist flag, which will be a perpetual immersion-breaker. Maybe use a Shovel and Pitchfork instead?The icons in the blog are just for the blog, and won't be in the game. We'll have proper graphic designers make all the stuff you see in the game.
I for one find it most lulzy and worthy of the proletariat.
That said, a shovel and pitchfork placed the same way would in turn bring much hilarity.
This one actually makes me interested in the game. The prior blogs have left me somewhat cold, but this gives me hope that it might be a game I will be able to enjoy.
Also in the Sandbox Ecosystem graphic the 'People Who Make' have transport listed under them. Does this mean player based fast/ auto travel will be available?
I saw this too. I would definitely like that statement to be clarified. I am very excited about everything else in this post. Hopefully sometype of transport system for goods will be implemented. I am a little worried about the "module" system and instancing but I will brainstorm a little before I speak to much about it.
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Goblin Squad Member
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This is exactly the kind of thing I want to see in an online multi-player game. I absolutely love the idea of enemy encampments that you have to keep an eye out for. Keeping the lands safe, worrying about problems in adjacent hexes. The idea that these kinds of areas might actually require for diplomacy or even cause huge sweeping events is awesome.
I only hope you guys aren't over-reaching the abilities of the technology.
I want in day one in any case.
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I am super excited about this game. After swtor failing so hard, this gives me hope of a game I can really fall in love with again. The blend of eve/eq/swg elements so far sounds like a pure win!
Goblinworks Executive Founder
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You've described three major facets of the game; what you didn't mention was any aspect of exploration. Will there be a place for characters who exclusively want to go out where nobody has been in a while and report back as to the monsters, resources, lairs, and encampments there? Obviously that concept does poorly in a highly civilized area, but unless the entire river kingdoms area becomes a megalopolis, there will be at least some uncivilized areas.
I love the idea of having player actions have a permanent impact on the world, but I am cautious about the implementation: If only a very small percentage of players ever participates in such creation, then it is unlikely that any given person will do it. (Tautological) If a fairly small percentage of players create permanent changes, then the absolute number of those permanent changes becomes hard to count, much less make special or unique; if 15% 4500 players are involved in such a change, with an average group size of 5, that's over a hundred individual changes. Unless there is some cookie-cutter aspect to it, I don't see any reasonable budget creating that much new content for such a small minority of the playerbase. I suppose that those permanent changes could require many, many, more than 5 characters to implement, by making them a world or hex-wide event lasting a significant time, but that goes against the 'sandbox' description. One solution might be to put toys in instead of rides- The developer-created lich magically creates some buildings for his own use. When good-aligned players find it, it sends an envoy to evil players, offering boons in exchange for aid, while encouraging the good players to fight over their spoils. In this case, however, it is the developers making some stuff, and making the players determine which of the offered choices come to pass; I think what we want is a system that creates rules for what changes will be made, and lets the players' choices' outcomes' effects occur naturally.
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Goblin Squad Member
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You've described three major facets of the game; what you didn't mention was any aspect of exploration. Will there be a place for characters who exclusively want to go out where nobody has been in a while and report back as to the monsters, resources, lairs, and encampments there? Obviously that concept does poorly in a highly civilized area, but unless the entire river kingdoms area becomes a megalopolis, there will be at least some uncivilized areas.
Well based on 2 major parts of the blog I believe so
Ruins, lairs and caverns: These are the classic set-piece adventuring experiences of many tabletop games. Call them "dungeons" for the sake of discussion. You will find these areas using abilities; once located they'll spawn on the map and be findable by anyone who travels to the correct location. If they are cleared, or if no character interacts with them for a fixed amount of time, they'll be removed from the game world automatically.
From the sounds of that, the areas won't even exist until someone discovers them with abilities, Meaning someone actually has to be an explorer to discover/create them to begin with.
combining that with the intended size of the game
That red rectangle in the northwest highlights the Crusader Road area, our focus for launch.This area is roughly 11 miles wide and 12 miles tall—about 133 square miles. It contains part of the Echo Wood to the east and is bordered on the west by the West Sellen River. The zone includes the currently abandoned town of Mosswater.
combined with
At launch, and for the first seven months following, we will cap new paying players at 4,500 per month
It sounds like the land/people ratio is going to be rather on the large side, there should be plenty of nearly unexplored territory for an explorer to discover new dungeons and report his findings to his friends.
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Goblin Squad Member
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At this point, I would give a kidney to beta test this game. I've been longing for a good sandbox MMO, and what i've seen so far has me anticipating this game. Would it be possible to find out what the crafting system will look like? I can't see the game using the standard weapon charts of Pathfinder (because really, how many 1d8 longswords can you bother making?), since all weapons would end up being identical. The sooner I know about the crafting, the sooner I can start rounding up a posse to gather resources so I can set out to make the best arms and armor Golarion has ever seen!
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Goblinworks Executive Founder
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Alexander- Under US federal law, it is illegal to receive money or gifts in exchange for an organ donation. I think GW is US-based, so they can't legally get you into the beta for giving a kidney. Consider becoming (or remaining) an organ donor anyway. This concludes our public service announcement.
I'm going to be out on the frontier, scouting new terrain and making maps (by hand and screengrab if nothing else). I'm sure I'll stumble across some surface deposits of useful material, which I will gladly trade in exchange for items made of useful material.
My rates will probably be quite high- I'll expect that I get almost all of the equipment made from the rarest of my resources. If you only wanted to make the stuff, that should be fine with you, but if you wanted to use it yourself, you might need to find someone else to gather your materials.
Back on topic: There isn't a line indicating coin transfer from the builders to the common folk. Is this an accidental omission, or will people literally work for food and shelter? If not as NPC wages, what is the primary sink for coinage?
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Goblin Squad Member
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If you succeed in developing it as depicted it will be grandiose!
Awesome. My only reservation, and I am sure it is probably unfounded, is that it does seem a bit too EVE'ish with respect to active areas. You mention the ability to find new areas, or "dungeons" of various sorts, and that these will stay active for anyone who can find them (for a time)...does this mean you must fast travel to them, or that they actually exist as a location in the world and anyone who is roaming the world can also run across them? I certainly hope for the latter, but your description sounds like the former (like EVE).
I fail to get what you are saying, at least in your reference to EVE.
A mission given by a NPC will spawn a location that can be found only when there is a player ship in it (or a drone, even an abandoned one).A exploration site can be found by anyone at any time, independently from a prior discovery from another player.
Obviously you need the appropriate gear to find those ships and locations.
So in EVE the "dungeons" are active for everyone that has the gear to find them while adventuring sites spawned expressly for you by NPC can be found when there is a player in them. It seem much more near your latter version than the former.
This said, I am intrigued by the way you are handling resource harvesting. I hope guilds who "own" a particular region can build defenses on resource locations to assist in defense of the position as they mine deep. This will, as you suggest, spawn bigger and bigger mobs and would be another contribution of the "builders". It would be fun as a guild to get everyone online because you are going to mine spot x...and the miners pull as much as they can out of the node while the defenders man the defenses against wave after wave of ever stronger spawns.
I am a bit unclear on the changing of resource nodes after they have been mined for a time.
If I find a node with iron ore it will:- despawn after being mined for a short time?
- stay at long as it is mined and attract more monster?
- have a high chance of despawning after being mined for a short time but a change to be a more substantial vein of iron that can be mined for years? and if that is true there are ways to mitigate the build up of monsters?
- if the the nature of the hex change as it become more settled and hopefully it lose some of the deep wilderness qualities, it will affect my mine?
i.e, I have discovered a iron mine and built a village in that hex to harvest the gold, changing the nature of the hex from deep wilderness to a civilized area. That will change the resources in the are and make my gold mine deplete faster or completely disappear as gold isn't meant to be gathered in safe areas?
(I am sure the Developers have thought about this, but I am interested in knowing how it will be managed)
Found myself drooling while reading through the blog. =D Sounds really promising.
I'd also like to ask about the npc commoners' invisibility. Are they all going to be invisible, or most of them? Was planning to make a bandit character who dwells in wilderness and occasionally sneaks around villages/towns robbing npc commoners, however if they are all invisible I won't be able to pillage the npc folks. XD
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For me, each blog continues to tick every box on the design document that is pretty much my dream MMO.
It's hard to manage expectations after a decade spent dying of thirst in a zero risk, zero danger, zero variation wasteland of theme park clones.
Out of curiosity, and I'm not really expecting a meaty answer, has there been any mention of how far along the development process is technically?
I was assuming they were in a pre-production stage of refining the design doc and possibly mapping out a development calender, or has any actual coding or asset creation begun? And also, is it ready yet? How about now?
Edit: Great questions by the way guys, most of what I intended to ask upon initially reading the blog has been asked.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Valkaern, there's another thread called Have you started Coding yet? where...
Our main effort right now is in crafting the design document that lays out the fundamentals of how the game will work. That needs to be pretty well nailed down before you start writing code. We're also working on getting our financing in place, and on figuring out who we're going to hire for some key positions.
That's from just a couple of days ago, so I would imagine it's still pretty accurate.
And also, is it ready yet? How about now?
How about now?
@Valkaern, there's another thread called Have you started Coding yet? where...
Our main effort right now is in crafting the design document that lays out the fundamentals of how the game will work. That needs to be pretty well nailed down before you start writing code. We're also working on getting our financing in place, and on figuring out who we're going to hire for some key positions.That's from just a couple of days ago, so I would imagine it's still pretty accurate.
And also, is it ready yet? How about now?How about now?
Excellent, I missed that one. Thanks for the tip =)
You list three main types of characters (fighters, makers, builders)... I'm wondering how the Pathfinder classes work with those types... are the core classes strictly 'fighter' types? Do makers and builders have their own classes? Can one character only be of one type?
I'm really liking what I read, but two weeks is too long to wait between blog posts! :P
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Goblin Squad Member
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Can one character only be of one type?
GW has been pretty clear that your character development will be extremely open, in that you will be able to train any skill you want. So, yes, it is almost certain that you will be able to create a single character that is trained as a Paladin, a Rogue, a Mage, a Cleric, a Maker, and a Builder.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I just noticed that the resource flow diagram looks like someone went back in afterwards and used a crayon to add in the Resources arrow from PVE to Adventurers. Shouldn't that same line also go from Adventurers to Makers?
Nitpicky, I know, but it's almost lunchtime and there's not enough action in this forum :)
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Goblin Squad Member
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I... I... Bu... Me...
Seriously, give me a moment to collect myself.
...
Okay.
This. Is. Awesome. Not only will you have dungeon-like areas that have to be tracked down (Using animal companions in place of EvE's probes? Or maybe make a use for Survival or Knowledge (local)?), you will have groups of monsters that get stronger over time! Brilliant! I've been wanting that feature in a game for a long, long time now. It's so dumb in theme park games to see the Evil Fortress of Doom never actually, you know, expanding its territory.
Plus, harvesters and fighters having a good reason to work together?! Kick-ass! A decent agreement could be: "Hey, fighter, you wanna guard me while I chop wood/mine this ore? You can have any loot the monsters drop, and I get some peace and quiet while I'm working!" The fighter gets guaranteed monster spawns, and the harvester gets uninterrupted harvesting! Awesome!
And NPCs actually being important, not just signposts wearing clothes? The mechanics with which you treat the citizens of your kingdom are going to need some careful tweaking; I don't want the game to turn into Sim City or, worse yet, Fable 3. Still, actually being able to manage a kingdom's citizens could make for some interesting gameplay.
And when some hex gets overrun by encampments, makes a Dark Tower of Doom, and starts encroaching on my hex, I'll have a damn good reason to stand and fight.
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Goblin Squad Member
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If you succeed in developing it as depicted it will be grandiose!
Awesome. My only reservation, and I am sure it is probably unfounded, is that it does seem a bit too EVE'ish with respect to active areas. You mention the ability to find new areas, or "dungeons" of various sorts, and that these will stay active for anyone who can find them (for a time)...does this mean you must fast travel to them, or that they actually exist as a location in the world and anyone who is roaming the world can also run across them? I certainly hope for the latter, but your description sounds like the former (like EVE).I fail to get what you are saying, at least in your reference to EVE.
A mission given by a NPC will spawn a location that can be found only when there is a player ship in it (or a drone, even an abandoned one).
A exploration site can be found by anyone at any time, independently from a prior discovery from another player.
Obviously you need the appropriate gear to find those ships and locations.
So in EVE the "dungeons" are active for everyone that has the gear to find them while adventuring sites spawned expressly for you by NPC can be found when there is a player in them. It seem much more near your latter version than the former.
Sorry for being unclear. As you say the mission location does not even spawn until you "warp" to it. I always assumed it is simply an instance, not really a persistent location. If it was a persistent location, then a wandering ship could hypothetically travel to it without warping. EVE avoids this by making distances to vast that this is probabilistically impossible. PFO does not have that benefit. Yet, the way they described it in the blog made it sound as if they were going to...to me that still does not add up. If my "mission" is to go dstroy a goblin nest...and I get speed travel to a locale with a goblin nest...what if some random player is already at that location because they are out exploring? Will they have goblins spawn on them? The only solution to avoid this seems to make the location an instance, but then there are concerns with the persistence. I am not saying their model will not work or is not awesome, only that I did not understand. Hope that clears up my intent.
This said, I am intrigued by the way you are handling resource harvesting. I hope guilds who "own" a particular region can build defenses on resource locations to assist in defense of the position as they mine deep. This will, as you suggest, spawn bigger and bigger mobs and would be another contribution of the "builders". It would be fun as a guild to get everyone online because you are going to mine spot x...and the miners pull as much as they can out of the node while the defenders man the defenses against wave after wave of ever stronger spawns.I am a bit unclear on the changing of resource nodes after they have been mined for a time.
If I find a node with iron ore it will:
- despawn after being mined for a short time?
- stay at long as it is mined and attract more monster?
- have a high chance of despawning after being mined for a short time but a change to be a more substantial vein of iron that can be mined for years? and if that is true there are ways to mitigate the build up of monsters?
- if the the nature of the hex change as it become more settled and hopefully it lose some of the deep wilderness qualities, it will affect my mine?
i.e, I have discovered a iron mine and built a village in that hex to harvest the gold, changing the nature of the hex from deep wilderness to a civilized area. That will change the resources in the are and make my gold mine deplete faster or completely disappear as gold isn't meant to be gathered in safe areas?
(I am sure the Developers have thought about this, but I am interested in knowing how it will be managed)
I agree, good points.
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Goblin Squad Member
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If my "mission" is to go dstroy a goblin nest...and I get speed travel to a locale with a goblin nest...what if some random player is already at that location because they are out exploring? Will they have goblins spawn on them? The only solution to avoid this seems to make the location an instance, but then there are concerns with the persistence.
I did not read anything in the blog that led me to believe we would get any kind of fast travel to the spawned "dungeon". That said, with the scale they're talking about, I'm really hoping for a lot of empty wilderness, such that there will still be a very small chance of anyone else stumbling upon your "dungeon" by accident.
I'm very curious about how this will be implemented as well. Will there be "watchtowers" that are persistent on the map all the time, and which occasionally spawn as a "dungeon" by suddenly having a door that can be opened?
I'm hopeful that there will be enough variance that we don't get a few kills into a dungeon and then recognize it.
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Goblin Squad Member
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If my "mission" is to go dstroy a goblin nest...and I get speed travel to a locale with a goblin nest...what if some random player is already at that location because they are out exploring? Will they have goblins spawn on them? The only solution to avoid this seems to make the location an instance, but then there are concerns with the persistence.I did not read anything in the blog that led me to believe we would get any kind of fast travel to the spawned "dungeon". That said, with the scale they're talking about, I'm really hoping for a lot of empty wilderness, such that there will still be a very small chance of anyone else stumbling upon your "dungeon" by accident.
I'm very curious about how this will be implemented as well. Will there be "watchtowers" that are persistent on the map all the time, and which occasionally spawn as a "dungeon" by suddenly having a door that can be opened?
I'm hopeful that there will be enough variance that we don't get a few kills into a dungeon and then recognize it.
You are probably right, maybe I am just looking at everything through EVE colored glasses. I guess I have just seen "but EVE does it..." or "EVE makes it work..." one to many times. Sorry if I threw anyone else off the right track.
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8. "And there's even the chance that you might be able to create your own module content for other players—perhaps even on a for-profit basis." I've already said elsewhere I think there's a real opportunity here for letting 3rd parties create content like this. I'm very, very pleased to hear that y'all are thinking about how to make that work, and I'm looking forward to seeing what kind of tools evolve to meet those needs over the next decade or so. There's evidence all over the web that motivated users can and will create a lot of high-quality content for free just because they love what they're doing. If you give them the tools to do that in PFO, that will change the MMO world.
There's no question a robust system like this that actually worked could add an invaluable amount of longevity to the game for any of us 'Game Master/Dungeon master' types. Some of us love creating and building games as much as or more than we love playing them.
However, some examples of MMOs that tried to achieve this (player created content) off the top of my head would be: City of Heroes, Ryzom and EQ2. In every one of these examples I find the limitations implemented in order to maintain balance cramp creativity so severely that the content feels bland and lifeless.
Obviously developers need to maintain some level of control in order to preserve balance and curb Monty 'Haul' scenarios, so where they draw the line will be very important in determining whether it's a system worth implementing and devoting resources to, or not.
Unless they're certain they can give players enough tools and freedom to really create complex experiences, I would rather see the resources and time devoted to other game systems. The trade off wouldn't be worth it if what we're allowed to create amounts to a limited variation of bland rooms dotted with scaled monsters and nothing more. EQ2s new dungeon creator system for example was something I found to be very restrictive in terms of tools, rewards and challenges, and very bland and predictable to play through.
However, if the system offered something approaching the tool set available in NWN (I doubt we'll quite see that, but we can hope), I can't even imagine how much that could do down the line for this game in terms of longevity and replayability, and would certainly love to see resources devoted to that.
To sum up more succinctly, if they can provide a robust system that actually gave us with tools needed to create something that would be fun to play through, great. If it's going to be so severely limited due to balance restrictions that the end result is a lifeless series of halls and scaling monsters, skip it and devote resources to another area, as so far every attempt to incorporate this into an MMO setting has fallen very short. Personally, I would love for someone to get it right eventually.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I'm looking at the blog again, with special attention paid to the Settlement Economic System graphic.
The World Markets sounds a lot like the market in Eve, where you could see that some System X was selling 100 Widgets for 50 Coin and System Y wanted to buy 100 Widgets for 100 Coin. If you felt like you had the time and skill to move the Widgets from System X to System Y, you could make 50 Coin. Assuming the World Markets in PFO are going to operate similarly, I'm curious: Will all trades on the World Markets involve Coin? Or will there be occasional trades where Hex Alpha is selling X Resources for Y Food?
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Goblin Squad Member
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Obviously developers need to maintain some level of control in order to preserve balance and curb Monty 'Haul' scenarios, so where they draw the line will be very important in determining whether it's a system worth implementing and devoting resources to, or not.Unless they're certain they can give players enough tools and freedom to really create complex experiences, I would rather see the resources and time devoted to other game systems. The trade off wouldn't be worth it if what we're allowed to create amounts to a limited variation of bland rooms dotted with scaled monsters and nothing more. EQ2s new dungeon creator system for example was something I found to be very restrictive in terms of tools, rewards and challenges, and...
I still think almost any system with the instances, that they should probably be a for fun addition. IMO if they made it so that they could not create or destroy any resources, Think a magic illusion based holodeck from star trek. It allows all of the fun of the instances, but eliminates all persistence holes that would be caused by an infinitely repeatable instance, and prevent any power creep holes caused by say someone making a tiny 3' wide pit with 500 super deadly unranged monsters to fireball to death for free loot. While being an excelent way for players to test out different skills and abilities in a risk/reward free environment.