Added discussion thread for Goblinworks Blog: Time is the Fire in which We Burn.
Goblin Squad Member
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Travel times and the additional information on fast travel all seam reasonable.
Will seasons matter, besides eventual graphics for foliage? For example, might we see seasonal effects to weather, like marshy slow-go areas near rivers in spring? If there is farming, are harvests limited in winter?
The discussion of fast travel and ambushes raises another point: could there be PvE lairs that sometimes interdict fast travel, especially if the players try to fast-travel through unexplored/unsettled lands?
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Goblin Squad Member
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Did I read that right? The game will be ready in 15 seconds to a minute?
Great!
In all seriousness, though...
I'm glad I'll be able to see sunrises and sunsets. I also think it's great that "social organizations" will be able to share knowledge of fast travel destinations.
I'm curious, though, by using the term "social organizations" are you acknowledging that there will be "associations" in-game that are not strictly Chartered Companies. Or do you simply mean to say that other players can share this information?
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Goblin Squad Member
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I'm trying to visualize the scope of how large Crusader Roads is going to be, compared to the amount of players within the first development cycle of 7 months.
This is pure speculation on my part, I'm just trying to wrap my head around what to expect after launch and how we as players relate to the land we are given to work with.
We will have 256 hexes to start out with.
Three npc settlements taking up a total of 21 hexes, leaving 235 hexes.
50% of the remaining hexes zoned for PvE content (can't build structures).
50% of the remaining hexes zoned for construction ( 117 hexes we can build on).
That leaves a possability of 117 settlements.
Let's say 50% of that 117 hexes will remain occupied by inns, towers, docks and the like.
To create a Kingdom you need 7 total hexes, one hex to create the central point and the 6 surrounding hexes.
That leaves about 58 total hexes availible to build 8 Kingdoms.
Let's say 60% of the player base will be solo adventurers or small casual company's, and 40% of the player base consisting of large well organized charters.
Out of 16,500 players 40% would equal 6,600 players occupying a total of 8 kingdoms @ 825 players each kingdom.
Ryan mentioned in an earlier blog he expects around 100 active players in each hex. If each kingdom consists 7 hexes that would total 700 players each kingdom, that's close to the 825 players I had for each kingdom.
LOL now I have a better idea of the size and scope of the game!
Chief Technical Officer
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50% of the remaining hexes zoned for PvE content (can't build structures).
50% of the remaining hexes zoned for construction ( 117 hexes we can build on).
Where are you getting that from?
Ryan mentioned in an earlier blog he expects around 100 active players in each hex.
Also not seeing that in the blogs...
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Goblin Squad Member
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Ryan mentioned in an earlier blog he expects around 100 active players in each hex.Also not seeing that in the blogs...
On Mar 1, in Player-created buildings and structures thread, Ryan posted:
"The design assumes a median character density of 100 logged in characters per Hex. Once we hit our stride I expect we'll be adding Hexes on a very regular schedule."I don't think 100 active players and a median density of 100 logged in players are the same, but I think that's where the number 100 came from.
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Goblin Squad Member
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And you'll need to know the location of your destination. These locations are discoverable as you explore the world, and can be shared by members of social organizations as well.
No one can see me, but I assure you that I am gleefully clapping.
Also, BlackUhuru, well done on the math. Just one thing, won't the starting population be much smaller? I thought it was going to start out around 5,000 people or so.
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Goblin Squad Member
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And you'll need to know the location of your destination. These locations are discoverable as you explore the world, and can be shared by members of social organizations as well.No one can see me, but I assure you that I am gleefully clapping.
Also, BlackUhuru, well done on the math. Just one thing, won't the starting population be much smaller? I thought it was going to start out around 5,000 people or so.
It's a total for a 7 month development cycle of 4,500 players each month, and a retention rate of 50%.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Questions/suggestions:
Will it be possible for Charters to create 'safe roads'? That is, roads that have mechanics blocking ambushes(marshals, magic, other..)
Why does one game year have to line up with one real year? couldn't there be 4 game years to one year? It would be nice to see a change in seasons when it is cold and depressing outside.
With the above suggestion, I also suggest changing 4 to 4.002747, to account for the .25 day in 365/4. This also makes it so players with small play windows don't always experience the time same time of day in game, every ~4 days there is ~1 game hour shift.
IF you want to keep 1 game year = 1 year, I suggest changing 4 to 3.5 or 4.5 so every day the day/night times are switched, giving people, as previously mentioned, a change of scenery.
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Goblin Squad Member
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50% of the remaining hexes zoned for PvE content (can't build structures).
50% of the remaining hexes zoned for construction ( 117 hexes we can build on).
Where are you getting that from?
Ryan mentioned in an earlier blog he expects around 100 active players in each hex.Also not seeing that in the blogs...
Its all speculation from Ryans posts, I just figured if I split it down the middle, give or take a few % it wouldn't be off by much LOL.
I was just reconstituting some dried porcini mushrooms in cognac and breaking down a slab of rendered pork belly for dinner tonight while reading the blog and started jotting down numbers (:
Very good job on the math BlackUhuru! It still boggles my mind! As to the blog, I was very happy with it and I can post no complaints.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I imagine the NPC factions might take up more than seven hexes. Or at least, have partial control/influence over hexes more than one step away. It would make sense if Fort Riverwatch's influence didn't reach that far deep into the forest, but persisted near and along sections of the river. It would be oblong in shape, and maybe take up like a dozen or so hexes, with some of the more outlying ones having slower response times to crime, but still have crime be enforced.
The outlying hexes would have less services, but wouldn't have any construction sites. Only once you get completely outside of any NPC control/influence can you start building things, thus creating (in a vague sense) "PvE" and "PvP" areas of the map. It'd be more accurate to call them "Player-Controlled" vs. "Non-Player-Controlled", me thinks.
That's how it all works in my head anyway.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Skwiziks
NPC factions will take up at least 19 hexes:
1. Settlement
6. Total Safety
12. Marshal patrolled.
If the marshals patrol the next ring of hexes it becomes 27 hexes. GW hasn't told us how much the marshal's arm reaches. But we know it is at least the hexes surrounding the magically protected 7.
~Info from blog post section on marshals/griefing.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Right, but geographically speaking, they may not be placed in a spot that allows them to have concentric rings of control, so may have a non-circular shape. That might mean that the arm of the law reaches two hexes away to the east, but five hexes away to the south, for example.
I imagine that they'll all share the same number of hexes for symmetry's sake. And yeah, at least 19 sounds good considering there will be 256 to start. Approximately 1/4 of the map controlled by NPC factions seems reasonable.
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Chief Technical Officer
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Ryan mentioned in an earlier blog he expects around 100 active players in each hex.Also not seeing that in the blogs...On Mar 1, in Player-created buildings and structures thread, Ryan posted:
"The design assumes a median character density of 100 logged in characters per Hex. Once we hit our stride I expect we'll be adding Hexes on a very regular schedule."I don't think 100 active players and a median density of 100 logged in players are the same, but I think that's where the number 100 came from.
And it's *very* different from the total number of characters associated with a particular settlement.
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Chief Technical Officer
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Its all speculation from Ryans posts, I just figured if I split it down the middle, give or take a few % it wouldn't be off by much LOL.
So long as everyone realizes that it's highly speculative, carry on!
I was just reconstituting some dried porcini mushrooms in cognac and breaking down a slab of rendered pork belly for dinner tonight...
And definitely carry on with that!
Usually the safety of safe travel is taken for granted. This will take some getting used to...
Now when am I supposed to get up to pee?
:)
You are safe only while docked at space station :P
Goblinworks Founder
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"Goblinworks Blog: Time is the Fire in which We Burn" was another strong post to the Pathfinder Online design blog. Keep up the great posts!
My favorite comment on the Goblinworks facebook page is written by Cory James Hill: "I'm throwing money at your blog, but it just bounces off my screen... sign me up."
Don't worry Decius, I'll be right there with you... maybe perhaps a little behind you in case we get attacked haha.
~ Solemor Far'men, Founding Member of the Caeruxi
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Goblin Squad Member
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So, the over/under is 5 hours from launch to the time that a character has traversed the entire perimeter of the accessible world.
I'd take the under, but I'm a competitor.
Over. Monsters and encounters would easily cause that to blow out. Even if you managed to avoid them all the sidetracking would slow you :) (Be fun to try though :)
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Goblin Squad Member
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I was just wondering if anyone else thinks that it would be a good idea to implement a mechanic to alow players without a particular fast travel end point to "follow along" when joining a caravan as say a gaurd or passenger. As the playable world enlarges I think it may benefit alot of players, plus it makes a bit of sense that you could join up with a group of like minded travelers to help reduce the risk to individual players when trying too reach new far off areas. Members of small companies or solo players may have a spot of trouble traveling through dragon infested swamps to get to the next kingdom over as well.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I was just wondering if anyone else thinks that it would be a good idea to implement a mechanic to alow players without a particular fast travel end point to "follow along" when joining a caravan as say a gaurd or passenger. As the playable world enlarges I think it may benefit alot of players, plus it makes a bit of sense that you could join up with a group of like minded travelers to help reduce the risk to individual players when trying too reach new far off areas. Members of small companies or solo players may have a spot of trouble traveling through dragon infested swamps to get to the next kingdom over as well.
I also agree, I think it is very likely that fast travel as a party will be both popular and desired. Especially considering bandit's lairs imply multiple attackers, it only makes sense for the option to have multiple defenders. Actually the description of hideouts seems to imply such
Advancing a hideout can make it harder to locate, increase its local storage, increase its threat radius, and allow the hideout's occupants to determine the nature of passing characters and their gear before triggering an ambush.
The fact that it says "characters and their" at least IMO means more then one person can be fast traveling together,
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Goblin Squad Member
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Actually a large guild or group deciding to have a "wagons east' convoy to settle newly released lands would probably lead to some fairly epic gameplay.
I imagine that setting that up would be something that could happen quite organically through the players, especially if they were escaping some perceived threat or oppression within their own hexes.
As always, thank you for the blogs and the insight into your design process. I daresay I'm enjoying reading both them and the discussions here as much as I enjoy playing an MMO.
Count me as one who would like to keep the day/night cycle fixed to regular hours in the real world. If I've got an in-game reason for something to happen at midnight, for example, I'd like to know that midnight always happens at 12am, 6am, 12pm, and 6pm my time. That helps me plan it out. I don't want to have to do math each time along the lines of "Let's see, midnight was at 7:38pm today, so on Friday it will be at ... hm .... 8:12pm?"
Yes, this means if I only play from 8-10pm each night I'll always see dusk in-game. But my experience has been that even people with restricted schedules will sometimes play at different times (holidays, weekends, home sick, etc.). I'm willing to trade some lack of variety for predictability.
From reading the blog entry, I'm getting the impression that the game will have a 4:1 scale, is that correct? After all, if I walk 4x as fast as would be expected but my walk appears normal (i.e. the scenery isn't flashing past me), then if I walk for an hour to traverse the entire starting region top to bottom I will have walked past 3 miles of terrain, not 12. That means the size of the world itself is not 133 square virtual miles, but rather 8.3 square virtual miles.
There was a lot of interesting discussion of game world sizes in the thread for the Crusader Road blog post. Some sizes offered for comparison from other games were 80 sqm for WoW at launch, 16 sqm in Oblivion, and 10 sqm for Morrowind. I don't have sources for these numbers, I'm just repeating what was discussed there. At the time, 133 sqm for PFO seemed huge - however 8.3 sqm seems quite small.
That size may be perfectly fine though, with a small starting population and gradual ramp up of subscribers, plus the fact that you want people to come into conflict on a regular basis. Also, much of the perceived size of the world is affected by the design of the terrain. I'm expecting lots of rivers that make straight-line travel difficult.
Have I misunderstood what walking speed implies for world scale? Wouldn't be the first time I've been wrong. :)
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Goblin Squad Member
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@BlackUhuru,
I'm a little confused by some of your speculation. You suggest there will be:
- A 50/50 split for hexes zone for PvE vs Construction.
- Hexes with Inns/Towers/Docks, etc. won't be suitable for Settlements.
- Kingdom's require a central hex plus the 6 surrounding.
I understand that the NPC Settlements might be special, and take up 7 or more hexes, but I was totally under the impression that it would be possible for every other "typical" hex to have a Settlement.
I was also under the impressions that Kingdoms wouldn't really even have to be contiguous.
I'd really appreciate it if you could provide some links to the discussions that gave you the impressions you had.
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Goblin Squad Member
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You can't use fast travel if you've been flagged as a criminal.
Wow. This is great!
Not knowing exactly how you get flagged and unflagged, it seems to be very good news to bounty hunters (and thus to bounty placers). "You can hide, but you can't run at 20x speed".The ambush mechanic and slow wagons gives localised economies (we hope), and denying fast travel to criminals gives localised crime which again segments economies.
Petition for in-flight entertainment:
The numbers suggest that trekking across the map will take about 10 minutes (more with wagons), i.e. that we routinely will be lookign at the 'fast travel screen' for 2-4 minutes at a time while risking ambush and loss of cargo if we go afk. Could we ask for some small mini-game (sliding puzzles, tetris, tictactoe, snake, or whatever) to numb our minds when fast travelling? If you really want to make me happy, let us do crafting activities while fast-travelling (same risk, same travel time, just not wasted time).
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Goblin Squad Member
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From reading the blog entry, I'm getting the impression that the game will have a 4:1 scale, is that correct?
No.
After all, if I walk 4x as fast as would be expected but my walk appears normal (i.e. the scenery isn't flashing past me)
Your character will likely animate as if it were in realtime, but the distance traveled with each step will be 4x normal. We'll work on making this appear reasonable so it's possible that you'll animate at something faster than realtime to avoid the sense that you're "skating" across the ground.
RyanD
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Goblin Squad Member
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So, each step we see animated will cover the same ground as four steps. And this will only be done to keep the animation from looking silly.
In reality, your character will be walking at 3 miles per hour to cross a hex in about 15 minutes of game time, but that will only take about 4 minutes of real time.
Makes perfect sense to me.
I would, however, like to add my voice to those encouraging a slight difference in the 4:1 time scale so that 6PM local time for me is not always the exact same time of day in-game. It almost seems like you would have to do that if you're serious about this quote:
1. Players should not be forced to play in a constant state of day or night based on their local time
Goblinworks Executive Founder
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I agree... I think that advancing the game clock by 97 hours in a 25-hour period is appropriate, which would be a 3.88 multiple.
The reason I picked those numbers is so that people who can play for one hour at the same time each day would see their days advance at roughly one hour per hour played.
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Goblinworks Executive Founder
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From reading the blog entry, I'm getting the impression that the game will have a 4:1 scale, is that correct? After all, if I walk 4x as fast as would be expected but my walk appears normal (i.e. the scenery isn't flashing past me), then if I walk for an hour to traverse the entire starting region top to bottom I will have walked past 3 miles of terrain, not 12. That means the size of the world itself is not 133 square virtual miles, but rather 8.3 square virtual miles.
There was a lot of interesting discussion of game world sizes in the thread for the Crusader Road blog post. Some sizes offered for comparison from other games were 80 sqm for WoW at launch, 16 sqm in Oblivion, and 10 sqm for Morrowind. I don't have sources for these numbers, I'm just repeating what was discussed there. At the time, 133 sqm for PFO seemed huge - however 8.3 sqm seems quite small.
That size may be perfectly fine though, with a small starting population and gradual ramp up of subscribers, plus the fact that you want people to come into conflict on a regular basis. Also, much of the perceived size of the world is affected by the design of the terrain. I'm expecting lots of rivers that make straight-line travel difficult.
Have I misunderstood what walking speed implies for world scale? Wouldn't be the first time I've been wrong. :)
You walk at 3 game miles per game hour. In a real hour, you can walk 12 game miles. 3 miles per hour is 264 feet per minute, or roughly a football field per minute. With time compression, that means that it will take about 15 real seconds to walk the distance of a football field. Take a stopwatch and time out how long 15 seconds actually is when you aren't doing anything interesting.
1. Definitely agree on a slightly different time ratio to shift game time.
2. Please make fast travel safe. (See 3.) In the transition from EQ to WoW, flight paths and similar "hands free" mechanics were universally hailed as brilliant ways to break up play time, allowing you periodic, necessary minutes away from the keyboard. Eliminating the need for a bucket... The "hands free" times are the logical times to take breaks, and people will do it in spite of the risk rather than be forced to sit there doing nothing. I predict this will create a significant number of AFK ambushes, which aren't really fun for either side.
3. Allow any travel except fast travel to trigger ambushes. Make it so if you are carrying anything above a certain value, you cannot fast travel, thereby insuring bandits that their targets are worthwhile. This would also mean if any one person in the group cannot fast travel, then no one can.
From reading the blog entry, I'm getting the impression that the game will have a 4:1 scale, is that correct?No.
After all, if I walk 4x as fast as would be expected but my walk appears normal (i.e. the scenery isn't flashing past me)Your character will likely animate as if it were in realtime, but the distance traveled with each step will be 4x normal. We'll work on making this appear reasonable so it's possible that you'll animate at something faster than realtime to avoid the sense that you're "skating" across the ground.
RyanD
Great! I much prefer a big world with faster walking to a small world with slower walking. I look forward to seeing how it works out in practice.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@matiez, excellent idea about days lasting shorter in winter and longer in summer!
I'm also not in agreement with making fast travel be safe.
There are some really interesting dynamics that come up if Hideouts can't detect normal travel, but it's not something I feel strongly about either way.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Another vote for not making fast travel safe. I do think players should be able to map their fast travel on a hex-by-hex basis, to reduce (or increase) travel in unpatrolled areas.
I also think that there should be some mechanism for "safe time", we all need a break now and then. I'd even go for some game mechanism that encouraged a few in-game meal breaks when I put in a continuous 6 real hour/1 game day session.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@BlackUhuru,
I'm a little confused by some of your speculation. You suggest there will be:
- A 50/50 split for hexes zone for PvE vs Construction.
- Hexes with Inns/Towers/Docks, etc. won't be suitable for Settlements.
- Kingdom's require a central hex plus the 6 surrounding.
I understand that the NPC Settlements might be special, and take up 7 or more hexes, but I was totally under the impression that it would be possible for every other "typical" hex to have a Settlement.
I was also under the impressions that Kingdoms wouldn't really even have to be contiguous.
I'd really appreciate it if you could provide some links to the discussions that gave you the impressions you had.
I remember reading one of Ryans post stateing there will be hexes you won't be able to build on, strictly wilderness PvE areas etc, preventing over saturation. I was also under the impression that terrain will also prevent some hexes from being available for construction.
I could be totally off (: Just trying to get a visual of the scale. Vic already implied that I've lost my mind...
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Goblin Squad Member
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I dont want fast travel to be entirely safe, but i would like the ability to make certain routes safe. This would require tremendous time costs, bit the end result is charters can grant safe access for a price or free. This protection could be npc marshals and the ambushers would know marshals are there at the lowest level of the hideout, so they have to decide if they want to risk it. All npc ambushes would not ambush while you are escorted.
This would only be possible in very well established areas. There is always the option to not have wn escort, so ambushers wouldn't be a total waste.
+1 to not allowing fast travel while transporting more than you can carry on your character, such as witj a caravan.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I would like to see a suitably upgraded Settlement be able to significantly impact unwelcome Hideouts in that hex. Not so much so that being ambushed in that hex means the Settlement definitely gave permission for that Hideout to be there, but enough so that you'd wonder.
Other than that, I don't really see any room for "safe" fast travel.
On the other hand, I would very much like to see a game mechanic that rewarded you with about a 2 hour buff if you left your character idle (logged off or not) in an Inn or Hideout or Camp for about 15 minutes. I think we could all use a little encouragement to get up, walk around, and just take a break every couple of hours. It would be nice if we not only didn't feel like we were missing out on something by doing this, but also were actually rewarded for it.
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Goblin Squad Member
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The Crusader Road area is about 12 miles tall by 11 miles wide. It would require an hour of game time to walk a line from top to bottom—a few minutes less to go from side to side. There are 256 hexes in the area, so if you could walk straight across every hex, it would require about 16 hours of play time. This also passes a sanity test when compared to other virtual worlds. And as the area of the game expands with future development, the total time to traverse the area will grow as well.
Doing the math, hexes would be 1/2 mile square ? I dont think a village would fit. And we are starting with 4500 people in this area. I am thinking this first area will be covered fairly quickly.
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Chief Technical Officer
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Doing the math, hexes would be 1/2 mile square ? I dont think a village would fit. And we are starting with 4500 people in this area. I am thinking this first area will be covered fairly quickly.
Yes, the area of a hex is just under half a square mile.
As for your other concern, you might want to read this thread.