Goblin Squad Member
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In short, how are gamers with differing amounts of time on their hands going to interact and have fun in PFO?
My major problem is how this plays out in EvE Online. (And here's that comparison again... seriously, one of the reasons I'm looking forward to PFO is so we can have a sandbox MMO to discuss other than EvE Online. But I digress.) In EvE Online, although skill training happens whether you're logged in or not, money gathering requires you to be active. Fairly simple, sounds good, right? Problem is, the system really favors people with a lot of free time, or very flexible schedules. The people with more free time (That is, time not spent working/maintaining yourself and your home/socializing outside of an MMO) have more time to collect money: Running missions, mining, going pirate-hunting in the asteroids, joining up with corp-mates for any and all of these, etc. Also, anyone with a flexible schedule is going to be much more successful in a nullsec corp, as they can be "called to battlestations" at almost any time of the day (or night), and thus help fend off attacks from anyone, no matter what time it is, and thus are more valuable (and more likely to stay) in a good corp. (Anyone with more EvE Online experience than my small amount, please prove me wrong, if you can.)
This is one of the key reasons I stopped playing EvE Online: I work a job and go to school part-time; although I have a lot of time for gaming, it wasn't enough to really help out in nullsec or make a lot of profit in empire.
The thread is named after, in my observation, the main three groups of gamers, based on time:
The Nonstop Nolifers are the ones that do not have a time-intensive job/responsibilities, and can spend almost all of their waking time gaming. These are the people who dominate very grindy games, like most Korean MMO's, and EvE Online.
Weekend Warriors are gamers with 5-day-workweeks; they don't have much time during the week, maybe only an hour or half an hour a day, but have free weekends. WoW has definitely rolled out the red carpet for these gamers: the game has basically shifted from a daily-based game to a weekly-based game: Weekly raid lockouts, daily dungeon bonuses stacking up to 7 times if not used, etc.
Hour-A-Day Crunchers are busy both weekday and weekend, but have more steady chunks of time. They can put in more time in the weekdays, but are also busy on weekends. Many students and part-time workers are in this category. (A note to any full-time college students reading this: If you're not at least a little busy on the weekends, then you're not taking college seriously.) Daily quests are this group's specialty; the daily-quest rewards really add up if you can put in the time consistently, day by day.
If you're up for even more reading, TV Tropes handles this idea rather bluntly here:
TV Tropes on Nolifers
My question is, will PFO be different in this regard? And if so, how? Most theme-park games have "rested experience", and a huge chunk of rewards in once-a-day or once-a-week quests/dungeons/raids, so even only playing for an hour a day gets you a significant chunk of reward. EvE Online has no limits on playtimes, or compressions of benefits for the first bit of playtime each day, so as far as I can tell, the nolifers rule. What about in PFO?
Not sure about the money gathering side of the problem, but they should limit conquests to certain hours. This will at least give people with lives to live an opportunity to help their companies when it really counts. Of course then we have the problem of time zones etc, but IMO this is still better than 24/7 FFA.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Not sure about the money gathering side of the problem, but they should limit conquests to certain hours. This will at least give people with lives to live an opportunity to help their companies when it really counts. Of course then we have the problem of time zones etc, but IMO this is still better than 24/7 FFA.
One idea IMO that could be a good hybrid, because IMO it is imposible to believably say that a city can only be attacked between 7pm-9pm, or whatever the high point of traffic is, However seige weaponry itself could be NPC based, slow moving and come with say 24 hours or greater warning.
For simplicities sake, town defense is being attacked by town offense.
Town offense pays exorbenant amount of money + resources to build and set catipults etc... Construction takes 24 hours. Meanwhile town Defense recieves a warning "Spies have overheard town offense developing weaponry and planning to attack, reports indicate that this attack will commense at X time."
The actual battle could involve town offense, defending the seige units as they go out, and making sure they survive to deal the damage to the walls of the opposing town. This sets it up so the deffenders, have time to prepare, adjust their schedules or hire mercenaries if they don't think they can handle the incoming waves, but at the same time dosn't conform war to a set consistant schedule
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Goblin Squad Member
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Not sure about the money gathering side of the problem, but they should limit conquests to certain hours. This will at least give people with lives to live an opportunity to help their companies when it really counts. Of course then we have the problem of time zones etc, but IMO this is still better than 24/7 FFA.
Global agenda had an interesting way of combating this problem. The campaign alliance vs. alliance map was split up into time zones and each zone was opened for conquest during prime time of the targeted geographical location.
I'm not sure how this would work in this game, but it a possible solution.
One idea IMO that could be a good hybrid, because IMO it is imposible to believably say that a city can only be attacked between 7pm-9pm, or whatever the high point of traffic is,
I don't have problems with this. A lot of things are not believable enough in MMO's, like people disappearing for several days or them never really dying...
However seige weaponry itself could be NPC based, slow moving and come with say 24 hours or greater warning.
...
... But that's actually a great idea and I like it more than the strict schedule one! Hope there is no flaws I failed to notice in it ).
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Goblin Squad Member
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What is the problem with rewarding people who put in more hours? Real life works this way - you cannot become good at anything by doing it part time.
The problem isn't rewarding people who put in more hours. The problem is putting people at a disadvantage if they don't play often. There needs to be a buffer zone in the game to prevent 'no-lifers' from flat out dominating everyone in conquest.
The reward for playing often is you getting more stuff than other players. Very few casual gamers will be in the top 1% of any game economy.
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Goblin Squad Member
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You can't really prevent that people who put more effort into the game will get more out of it except if you wish to install a playtime cap which would hurt your sales more than not.
What needs to be done in PFO is that even casual players can contribute IF they are willing to invest some of their time into the social aspect of the game. I don't expect a csual "lone wolf" type of player to fare well in PFO or really anywhere.
But if I get into a good guild and I log on and ask what I can do and the answer is "gather me some x" or "help defend y" then I will contribute and feel good alongside players that play 24/7.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Most theme-park games have "rested experience", and a huge chunk of rewards in once-a-day or once-a-week quests/dungeons/raids, so even only playing for an hour a day gets you a significant chunk of reward. EvE Online has no limits on playtimes, or compressions of benefits for the first bit of playtime each day, so as far as I can tell, the nolifers rule. What about in PFO?
Rested experience is mostly to narrow the gap between hard core and casual gamers, like you say. Since training/skill gains will occur on-line or off, rested gains would need to take other forms.
My preference would be to have characters be able to log off at certain buildings to help gain resources or other benefits. So logging off as a laborer at a farmhouse might yield crops; logging off at a smithy might yield nails or wire for chain links or whatever. Logging off at a barracks might allow the city guard to be supplemented with an NPC guard (or a third of a guard, if they have 8-hour shifts). Some benefits might go to the helper, but some might go to the building owner or the settlement.
Key to all of this would be that a player has to have a skill and the right badges to fill these roles, and the buildings have to exist. Some cases, like the guard above, might require losing some part (half?) of normal skill gains because of the nature of the work. (And so not everyone does it). Buildings might have limits to the number of off-line helpers. In any case, only active/paid characters can get these benefits, just like skill gains, so there is no benefit to create an alt to game the mechanism.
I lean towards only player-made buildings having the option for helpers, or having better benefits than the NPC buildings in the starter towns. So if you want an off-line job, head to the new settlements. Settlements might choose to allow non-citizens to work as labor because it means more raw materials in their town. It also allows new players to become familiar with the citizens, join PUGs, etc.
(Bottom line to me is that on-line farming is boring. If it needs to be done, let us do it when we're offline.)
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Goblin Squad Member
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Rested experience is mostly to narrow the gap between hard core and casual gamers, like you say. Since training/skill gains will occur on-line or off, rested gains would need to take other forms.
My preference would be to have characters be able to log off at certain buildings to help gain resources or other benefits. So logging off as a laborer at a farmhouse might yield crops; logging off at a smithy might yield nails or wire for chain links or whatever. Logging off at a barracks might allow the city guard to be supplemented with an NPC guard (or a third of a guard, if they have 8-hour shifts). Some benefits might go to the helper, but some might go to the building owner or the settlement.
Key to all of this would be that a player has to have a skill and the right badges to fill these roles, and the buildings have to exist. Some cases, like the guard above, might require losing some part (half?) of normal skill gains because of the nature of the work. (And so not everyone does it). Buildings might have limits to the number of off-line helpers. In any case, only active/paid characters can get these benefits, just like skill gains, so there is no benefit to create an alt to game the mechanism.
I lean towards only player-made buildings having the option for helpers, or having better benefits than the NPC buildings in the starter towns. So if you want an off-line job, head to the new settlements. Settlements might choose to allow non-citizens to work as labor because it means more raw materials in their town. It also allows new players to become familiar with the citizens, join PUGs, etc.
(Bottom line to me is that on-line farming is boring. If it needs to be done, let us do it when we're offline.)
I totally agree with all this.
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Goblin Squad Member
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My preference would be to have characters be able to log off at certain buildings to help gain resources or other benefits. So logging off as a laborer at a farmhouse might yield crops; logging off at a smithy might yield nails or wire for chain links or whatever. Logging off at a barracks might allow the city guard to be supplemented with an NPC guard (or a third of a guard, if they have 8-hour shifts). Some benefits might go to the helper, but some might go to the building owner or the settlement.
Key to all of this would be that a player has to have a skill and the right badges to fill these roles, and the buildings have to exist. Some cases, like the guard above, might require losing some part (half?) of normal skill gains because of the nature of the work. (And so not everyone does it). Buildings might have limits to the number of off-line helpers. In any case, only active/paid characters can get these benefits, just like skill gains, so there is no benefit to create an alt to game the mechanism.
I totally agree with this idea. There's already a forum thread about if players can do stuff while logged out... here it is:
Keep players online, even when logged off|
Goblin Squad Member
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If a game doesn't require you to spend much time in order to reap benefits then it loses a considerable amount of its addiction factor, which is a big issue from a marketing standpoint: if you're not spending a lot of time logged into PFO, then you're spending it doing something else, and that makes game developers nervous.
Not saying I like it that way, but I understand the very fine line you're asking them to walk.
Goblinworks Executive Founder
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The answer to your question about how to get ISK in EVE without grinding is PLEX, btw. $35 gets you more than enough ISK to do pretty much anything except fly capital ships without concern.
RyanD
Do you have any intentions to implement an equivalent? Perhaps 'training vouchers' which can be redeemed for one month of skill progression?
The richest people (or at least the ones with the highest regular incomes) that I know in EVE, for the most part make that money in less then an hour a day. Production, research, and station trading are all minimally time intensive and highly profitable activities. Of course they require a good deal of out of game research, and a significant initial training time investment.
Even I manage to pay for the vast majority of my account through Planetary Interaction and Datacore farming. PI takes me about an hour a week, and collecting datacores takes an additional 3 hours a month or so. Of course pretty much everything is more effective if you can micro-manage it.
This is pretty much correct. Once you realize certain thresholds in skills - many of them fairly quick to access once you know about them - you can accumulate largely passive income in the form of datacores, Planetary stuff and various forms of long-term build time industrial projects.
If you're really lazy, PI bi-weekly and datacore farming will contribute a steady income that you only need to bother with once or twice a month. You'll spend more time, potentially, juggling your skill queue than your passive income.
It's a beautiful thing. :)
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Goblin Squad Member
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No reason the same kind of thing can't be implemented in PFO. I'm enormously in favour of being able to automate certain aspects of crafting once I've got a requisite skill level. For example, if I chose to become a blacksmith at some point I want to be able to shift focus from crafting myself to managing a number of NPC smiths instead. This could be offset so that the NPCs can only craft regular arms and armor until they are upgraded at whih point they could craft masterwork arms and armor, although that would be at the top end of the blacksmithing 'tree' to avoid flooding the market with cheap magic items.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Do you have any intentions to implement an equivalent? Perhaps 'training vouchers' which can be redeemed for one month of skill progression?The answer to your question about how to get ISK in EVE without grinding is PLEX, btw. $35 gets you more than enough ISK to do pretty much anything except fly capital ships without concern.
RyanD
It has nothing to do with training.
EVE PLEX work this way:a) a PLEX is is a in game object that can be redeemed for a 1 month subscription for your account;
b) it is produced by buying game time from CCP (directly or indirectly) for 17.5 €/$ for 1 PLEX;
c) it is then sold on the in game market by the player that has brought it. It is brought with game money produced in game by another player, so it is not a direct injection of game money from outside and it is subject to normal market forces.
All considered it is a good system.
- * - * - * -
Not sure about the money gathering side of the problem, but they should limit conquests to certain hours. This will at least give people with lives to live an opportunity to help their companies when it really counts. Of course then we have the problem of time zones etc, but IMO this is still better than 24/7 FFA.
I have played for a short time in a MMORPG with that system and my reply is:
"No, thanks"The experience was decidedly negative. it mean that you can't participate beyond a specific point if you don't live in the right area.
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Goblinworks Executive Founder
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Do you have any intentions to implement an equivalent? Perhaps 'training vouchers' which can be redeemed for one month of skill progression?The answer to your question about how to get ISK in EVE without grinding is PLEX, btw. $35 gets you more than enough ISK to do pretty much anything except fly capital ships without concern.
RyanD
It has nothing to do with training.
EVE PLEX work this way:
a) a PLEX is is a in game object that can be redeemed for a 1 month subscription for your account;
b) it is produced by buying game time from CCP (directly or indirectly) for 17.5 €/$ for 1 PLEX;
c) it is then sold on the in game market by the player that has brought it. It is brought with game money produced in game by another player, so it is not a direct injection of game money from outside and it is subject to normal market forces.All considered it is a good system.
I was aware of how PLEX works. In a game without a F2P mechanic, subscriptions are the only way to access the game. If PFO goes with the F2P model where one's subscription allows for skills to be trained, the effect changes. Key features are that it cannot be (easily) exchanged back for money, nor does it provide any increase in production beyond one more player-month.
One thing about PLEX that hasn't been mentioned so far is that you can pay for your subscription by purchasing game time off of the market via PLEX.
^__^ I like not having to pay a sub fee, right now, until early January of 2013.
Not sure about the money gathering side of the problem, but they should limit conquests to certain hours. This will at least give people with lives to live an opportunity to help their companies when it really counts. Of course then we have the problem of time zones etc, but IMO this is still better than 24/7 FFA.
Although I'd end up on the side that doesn't benefit from this due to my schedule, I'm against limiting events to specific times as a blanket attempt to create an even play field.
Restrictions like this seem to suck more out of a gaming experience than they add to it.
I think I'm firmly on the side of not trying to cram in contrived systems, even if it means I'm at some disadvantage to the guy who doesn't work and devotes all of his time to an MMO. I have never seen artificial restrictions do anything but create a jarring nonsensical experience that gets more and more bland the further it goes towards evening the play field.
I don't believe any systems at all should be implemented to make up for my lack of playtime, it detracts too much to be worthwhile, and of course everyone will have a differing opinion on how far it should be taken as well.
In a broader sense, and not exactly in reply to your post, as someone that will only be able to play around my work schedule, I absolutely feel that I do not deserve to be on the same level as someone who gives up sleep, showers, food & life to push on further than me.
Making games accessible is one thing, but the overwhelming sense of entitlement that's been running rampant in MMOs since a certain arrival in 2004 has done absolutely no good overall, in my opinion. Artificially inserting 'fairness' that negates any advantage someone has worked for or has access to detracts from the game as a whole.
I do not deserve to be artificially boosted to be on par with someone who puts in way more time than I do.
I really hope PFO doesn't take up the quest for fairness much beyond possibly a basic 'rested' system.
(This isn't exactly directed at your post, it's just a jumping off point as the system of time limited events has been something that's always turned me off or lessened my enjoyment of a game).
Although I do understand the problems associated with limiting conquest activities, I still think they actually improve the experience if used right.
It shouldn't necessarily be the system I proposed - just any system allowing people to know they should be ready to defend some hours before the actual attack. Without such a system conquests will probably be too chaotic and timezone-dependent. And I'd like a lost battle to actually matter and have an impact for at least some time.
About artificial restrictions. There are tons of them in any game, and their main purpose is usually to compensate flaws of simulation and to make games more fun. Leaving aside the 'fun' part of it (as we obviously have different points of view on it), I believe there is an inevitable flaw in simulation that could use some compensation.
Imagine a city being attacked. A servant is knocking a knight's door: "Sir Lionhair, arm yourself and help us protect the city!" only to get a reply like "Sorry, gotta study for the tomorrow's exam", or "I'm fighting with my gf at the moment, soz", or "You know, I'm not actually at home right now".
One can't be expected to sacrifice too much for a game, so wouldn't it be nice of the developers to create a system that would at least give players an opportunity to adjust their schedule if they want to help their kingdom?
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Goblin Squad Member
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It shouldn't necessarily be the system I proposed - just any system allowing people to know they should be ready to defend some hours before the actual attack. Without such a system conquests will probably be too chaotic and timezone-dependent. And I'd like a lost battle to actually matter and have an impact for at least some time.
This is something completely different from your first suggestion.
Limiting city conquest to, for example, 20.00-24.00 GMT of every day is terrible for anyone that don't live in the right time zone.Limiting it so that the siege train, after reaching the city hex, need 24 hours of real time to set up and be ready for the attack is acceptable.
This is something completely different from your first suggestion.
Limiting city conquest to, for example, 20.00-24.00 GMT of every day is terrible for anyone that don't live in the right time zone.
Limiting it so that the siege train, after reaching the city hex, need 24 hours of real time to set up and be ready for the attack is acceptable.
Yes, and I admitted I liked Onishi's idea even more back in post 5 of this thread. I'm not fanatic about the schedule idea, it was just the first solution that came to my mind.
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Goblin Squad Member
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If a game doesn't require you to spend much time in order to reap benefits then it loses a considerable amount of its addiction factor, which is a big issue from a marketing standpoint: if you're not spending a lot of time logged into PFO, then you're spending it doing something else, and that makes game developers nervous.
Not saying I like it that way, but I understand the very fine line you're asking them to walk.
I totally agree with this. I don't think you should be able to play a game without being logged in. Just my opinion tho. =)
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Goblin Squad Member
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Yes, and I admitted I liked Onishi's idea even more back in post 5 of this thread. I'm not fanatic about the schedule idea, it was just the first solution that came to my mind.This is something completely different from your first suggestion.
Limiting city conquest to, for example, 20.00-24.00 GMT of every day is terrible for anyone that don't live in the right time zone.
Limiting it so that the siege train, after reaching the city hex, need 24 hours of real time to set up and be ready for the attack is acceptable.
I added to this idea earlier, but it didn't seem to catch any attention. Global agenda had a good system where certain regions of the campaign map where only open for a few hours every day.
This could be done in PFO by having an 'open for attack' window set by a charter that has to be for X amount of hours every week. So charters could have a heavy defense times, and a few days break for doing large scale group activities without having to put everything at risk.
Then a system is required where charters can declare war against another charter during an 8 hour window centered at average peak population of the past month for the charter. The defending charter must open them selves up for attack during that window for a number of hours over period of time. If they don't answer or they don't stay open for attack long enough, they become attack able at any time by the attacking charter.
A balance needs to be found that will not encourage mass takeovers. The cost of war should be much higher than the cost of starting your own settlement. It should take more than 6 months to see an improvement. Hopefully GW will be unlocking hexes at a very steady rate and we will never run out of building space. There also shouldn't be a resource that is so valuable that it is worth it to wage war. Raw materials should be very abundant and the quality should be dependent on the skill of the crafters.
I would like to see organized competitions be the main source of PvP in the game, not random encounters. And random attacks, even out in unlawuful territory should result in significant disadvantages if you ever want to re-enter into civilized zones.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Imagine a city being attacked. A servant is knocking a knight's door: "Sir Lionhair, arm yourself and help us protect the city!" only to get a reply like "Sorry, gotta study for the tomorrow's exam", or "I'm fighting with my gf at the moment, soz", or "You know, I'm not actually at home right now".One can't be expected to sacrifice too much for a game, so wouldn't it be nice of the developers to create a system that would at least give players an opportunity to adjust their schedule if they want to help their kingdom?
Not really, no. If one can't be there to defend the city, perhaps one can take it back at a later time. Imo, one should play the mmorpg at it's time schedule. The single player games are the ones that revolve around a single player. Let the developers set the world and we get to have fun in it. To set up these kinds of controls smacks of theme park type stuff. Too much control = less spontaneous player made fun. Just my opinion ofc. =)
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Goblin Squad Member
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Hopefully GW will be unlocking hexes at a very steady rate and we will never run out of building space. There also shouldn't be a resource that is so valuable that it is worth it to wage war. Raw materials should be very abundant and the quality should be dependent on the skill of the crafters.
It's a valid point you raise, and I'm interested in seeing how GW plans out the economy. Will there be enough resources that everyone can play PvE, or will resources be artificially limited so that PvP must occur?
I think I agree with you in hoping there will be enough resources that we can all PvE. I disagree in that I think that resources should vary, geographically, so that very few hexes should have a good supply of all resources. I think this is necessary to encourage trade and travel.
I also think that some resources, like precious metals, shouldn't be found everywhere. Settlements that have such resources in their territory will therefore have an edge, but they might also be a target of a war. However, even rare materials should be available from more than one source, to make it difficult for any one kingdom to corner a market.
I added to this idea earlier, but it didn't seem to catch any attention. Global agenda had a good system where certain regions of the campaign map where only open for a few hours every day.
This could be done in PFO by having an 'open for attack' window set by a charter that has to be for X amount of hours every week. So charters could have a heavy defense times, and a few days break for doing large scale group activities without having to put everything at risk.
Then a system is required where charters can declare war against another charter during an 8 hour window centered at average peak population of the past month for the charter. The defending charter must open them selves up for attack during that window for a number of hours over period of time. If they don't answer or they don't stay open for attack long enough, they become attack able at any time by the attacking charter.
A balance needs to be found that will not encourage mass takeovers. The cost of war should be much higher than the cost of starting your own settlement. It should take more than 6 months to see an improvement. Hopefully GW will be unlocking hexes at a very steady rate and we will never run out of building space. There also shouldn't be a resource that is so valuable that it is worth it to wage war. Raw materials should be very abundant and the quality should be dependent on the skill of the crafters.
I would like to see organized...
Yes, this can work too, though I personally like the 24 hour alert system more, because it doesn't completely take the initiative from the attacker in favor of the defender.
Now, conquest unlimited enthusiasts here, imagine a mostly American kingdom and, say, a mostly Russian kingdom. What will the war between them be like? With no restrictions, it will most likely be a series of mass raids and takeovers encountering no resistance on its way. What do Americans do at 16:00 GMT? Studying? Sleeping? Working? Too bad, cause it's 19:00 in the most populated regions of Russia and it neighbors. And when it's 19:00 at the north coast, it's 3:00 in Moscow. So they always attack each other when it's not expected and not convenient to defend.
Now, if one kingdom knows for sure the other is planning an attack in certain time, they will at least try to organize defense.
The above is only valid if there are no regional servers like in EVE, of course.
There is a compromise: contested territory can only change at the end of a day or week, and all work towards contesting or defending it is totaled for that day. If a siege engine isn't destroyed the day it gets to the walls, the walls are breached.
This idea would work great with instanced fights, where it is easy to determine for what actions "victory points should be given", but as far as I can see it is not what GW is aiming for.
It could still work though, if done right, and I like this idea.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Yes, and I admitted I liked Onishi's idea even more back in post 5 of this thread. I'm not fanatic about the schedule idea, it was just the first solution that came to my mind.This is something completely different from your first suggestion.
Limiting city conquest to, for example, 20.00-24.00 GMT of every day is terrible for anyone that don't live in the right time zone.
Limiting it so that the siege train, after reaching the city hex, need 24 hours of real time to set up and be ready for the attack is acceptable.
Yes, I had seen your post. My post wasn't a post against you, it was a post supporting the "warning time idea".
I added to this idea earlier, but it didn't seem to catch any attention. Global agenda had a good system where certain regions of the campaign map where only open for a few hours every day.This could be done in PFO by having an 'open for attack' window set by a charter that has to be for X amount of hours every week. So charters could have a heavy defense times, and a few days break for doing large scale group activities without having to put everything at risk.
Then a system is required where charters can declare war against another charter during an 8 hour window centered at average peak population of the past month for the charter. The defending charter must open them selves up for attack during that window for a number of hours over period of time. If they don't answer or they don't stay open for attack long enough, they become attack able at any time by the attacking charter.
A balance needs to be found that will not encourage mass takeovers. The cost of war should be much higher than the cost of starting your own settlement. It should take more than 6 months to see an improvement. Hopefully GW will be unlocking hexes at a very steady rate and we will never run out of building space. There also shouldn't be a resource that is so valuable that it is worth it to wage war. Raw materials should be very abundant and the quality should be dependent on the skill of the crafters.
Again, why the different groups should be ghettoed on the basis of their average playing schedule?
Your suggestion will result in "You are Italian, you can play with people living in a zone that start with western Russia and and with England and Spain", if you want to join a chartered group that operate outside that time zone you will find will be barred from a lot of activities.
Then there is the problem that the system can be gamed heavily. A guild could have a very short window of opportunity for the attacks so that only people in the identical time zone can attack them or it can try to get a very large period and then select the "window of attack"time to be the more inconvenient possible for the attackers.
I would like to see organized competitions be the main source of PvP in the game, not random encounters. And random attacks, even out in unlawuful territory should result in significant disadvantages if you ever want to re-enter into civilized zones.
What you mean with "organized competitions"? It sound awfully as arena combat.
it is not what GW is aiming for.
GW is Games Workshop. ;)
We should find a different acronym for Goblinworks.|
Goblin Squad Member
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A balance needs to be found that will not encourage mass takeovers. The cost of war should be much higher than the cost of starting your own settlement. It should take more than 6 months to see an improvement. Hopefully GW will be unlocking hexes at a very steady rate and we will never run out of building space. There also shouldn't be a resource that is so valuable that it is worth it to wage war. Raw materials should be very abundant and the quality should be dependent on the skill of the crafters.
I would like to see organized competitions be the main source of PvP in the game, not random encounters. And random attacks, even out in unlawuful territory should result in significant disadvantages if you ever want to re-enter into civilized zones.
I have to greatly differ with you there. If there is plenty of building spaces, plenty of resources and it is always less costly to build a new territory then to create a new one... then what is the purpose of war? What is conquest? Is simply becomes an advanced form of griefing once you reach that area.
IMO PVP needs to either be meaningful to the game, or removed all together. Arena PVP IMO is just a pointless minigame.
Though I do agree with you, the danger of 1 or 2 enteties controlling 3/4ths of the world is a true threat. One way to deal with that is maintinence costs... The more territory one holds etc... The more work it should be to keep holding onto it. Holding one kingdom should be simple enough, but keeping enough resources to hold many kingdoms should be very expensive, not to mention the increased quanity of sides you can be hit from, dangers of being attacked from multiple sides by multiple organizations etc... Someone who holds a huge amount of territory should have one heck of a time managing it, to the point that it eventually becomes unfeasable, and they start letting things fall to enemies or maybe even sell the towns because it is too expensive to control, maintain and defend everything.
They do need to avoid say one particular hex or area being so valuble for being the only place to obtain X, there should be multiple areas for X, but not necessarally close together. Trade routes, lands etc... should all have values and uses. There needs to be a solid balance between you must always be killing to get anything, and fighting is always an optional little extra thrown to the side.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Though I do agree with you, the danger of 1 or 2 enteties controlling 3/4ths of the world is a true threat. One way to deal with that is maintinence costs... The more territory one holds etc... The more work it should be to keep holding onto it. Holding one kingdom should be simple enough, but keeping enough resources to hold many kingdoms should be very expensive, not to mention the increased quanity of sides you can be hit from, dangers of being attacked from multiple sides by multiple organizations etc... Someone who holds a huge amount of territory should have one heck of a time managing it, to the point that it eventually becomes unfeasable, and they start letting things fall to enemies or maybe even sell the towns because it is too expensive to control, maintain and defend everything.
They do need...
Me this likey.
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Goblin Squad Member
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The answer to your question about how to get ISK in EVE without grinding is PLEX, btw. $35 gets you more than enough ISK to do pretty much anything except fly capital ships without concern.
RyanD
I do sincerely hope this means you'll be implementing a PLEX-like system in PFO. Let us buy in-game coin from you, or in sanctioned trades with other players (even if we do risk losing them in transport). I never understood why Blizzard didn't realize that the easiest way to put the gold sellers out of business was to sell gold at prices lower than the gold-sellers could afford to sell at.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I do sincerely hope this means you'll be implementing a PLEX-like system in PFO. Let us buy in-game coin from you, or in sanctioned trades with other players (even if we do risk losing them in transport). I never understood why Blizzard didn't realize that the easiest way to put the gold sellers out of business was to sell gold at prices lower than the gold-sellers could afford to sell at.
Well judging by diablo 3, even blizard is kind of leaning towards that path lately, considering the real world cash auction house. I think in WoW's case it is kind of pointless to bother to switch to that path, due to at least in my experience gold winds up pretty worthless after cap (admitted this is based off memory from vanilla WoW, they may have changed things since, but at least back then everything worth having after cap, was bind on pickup, with the exception of gear used specifically to twink perma 39, 49, 59 PVP alts).
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Goblinworks Executive Founder
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Recognize that if you can buy coin for cash, coin is no longer a finite commodity and becomes worthless as an ingame economic asset. PLEX avoids that trap by making the item which is worthless in game have no ingame utility, only metagame utility, and keeping the ISK supply independent.
Declaration of war is a civilized thing, and even then, you never got told "Hey, we're going to arrive in a week at your southern most fortress and siege it" AoC does this, and it's lame as everything, as well as the small number of 'siegers'.
I have a real problem with forcing people to adhere to schedules for pvp. It removes any real planning and makes it a simple quest or raid clone, that end up being reduced to a simple timing plan once you run it once.
You can't have a surprise attack if the system makes you schedule it. In effect, it creates a system that benefits those who hardly game at all, and do not wish to really risk it. If you know when the attack is coming, it's unlikely you'll fail to win the fight unless you can't get people to show up, and that's not likely going to happen when you get to pick the time.
If PFO is going to be a true sandbox, it cannot allow scheduling of player lead assaults on other player owned assets. That's the juvenile approach to PvP. Allow people to do them at will. Then while a group is assaulting an enemy fort, that enemy is in turn assaulting their fort. I would much rather see that play out, than a simple checklist of timing issues and an email to guildies about when the next big assault is going to occur.
This would also allow a PUG assault. Something AoC won't allow, for reasons I can't begin to figure out. People should be allowed to assault simply to destroy and not to take over. Denial of resources without capture is an effective policy of attrition. Not everyone who would try to deny something to a group intend to hold onto it. The simple act of destruction may be all they wish to partake of.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Probitas, you don't seem to have seen much (or, in my case, read much about) EvE Online's PvP conflicts. Even when attacks are on a timed basis, lots of sneak attacks and confusion abounds. War becomes not about winning one fight gloriously, but about gradually wearing the enemy down, forcing them to log on at wierd times to defend against your time zone, or just demoralize them on forums/in game through repeated attacks and taunts.
Then again, EvE doesn't do "scheduled" attacks; Station-sieging can be done at any time. However, the station goes into lockdown for some period (I think around 16 real hours or so, a true EvE vet can correct me), after which you can actually capture the station, assuming the defenders haven't mobilized a defense by then. So it does schedule a conflict, but more like a next-day conflict than a next-week fight. Also, that's only to take and hold territory; attacking groups of player ships can be done anytime, anywhere. That's the greater challenge and danger in EvE war; not so much worrying about station lockdown timers, but worrying that, at any time you're not in one of your corp's systems, a Black Ops Battleship could drop a whole fleet of bad guys right on top of your head. Even in your own system, sneak-attacks can and do happen, especially in systems fringing your enemies'.
A man named Alexander Gianturco, better known as The Mittani, has some records of EvE Online hilarity in his blog/news thread on Ten Ton Hammer; here's a link if you want to read more about EvE:
Sins of a Solar Spymaster
I'll be the first to admit that I'm firmly in the NoLifer camp. Not so fanatic that I don't sleep or take potty breaks, and heck, I even manage to make my way to a renfaire or SCA event occasionally. But I'm stuck on disability, meaning I can't (and don't have to) hold down a job, I have very few offline friends that I only rarely interact with, and the vast majority of my RL responsibilities are handled with an online payment system on the first couple days of the month (I don't trust my financial matters to automated systems though... too much room for error that I'm still held accountable for). Frankly there are a lot of days that an entertaining book or a compelling MMORPG is the only thing keeping the gun out of my mouth.
I am the perfect demographic for a subscription based MMORPG.
[sarcasm]I can certainly understand the plight of the cool kids who have jobs and families and lives (who happen to be rewarded offline for those offline activities... it's not like they have to go without positive reinforcement without having MMOs catered to their lifestyle) wanting to fit in with losers like myself by logging in to a game where they can pretend to have a meaningful existence in addition to actually having one.[/sarcasm]
I dislike the training and advancement system as thus far described very much. My character will not get any better at what he does in return for actually doing things. Adversely, I can develop skill just as fast by logging off and playing some other game, watching TV, or just about anything else. In essence I'm actually getting increased reward for NOT playing PFO, because I get all my PFO reward plus whatever else I do that rewards me for actually participating.
Additionally, since this model is basically letting people have X amount of advancement in return for X amount of monthly subscription fees, eventually it will become obvious that the most responsible business decision is to stop requiring people to wait for their advancement and just let them have as much as they can afford to purchase, as often as they are willing and able to shell over their money for it. Then PFO just becomes another Free-to-lose/Pay-to-win game in a sea full of them.
I don't mind a system where advancement is throttled to prevent people from maxing out their level, grinding end game for awhile, then getting bored and moving on and/or selling their account. That stuff is just as harmful to a game's long term viability in my opinion.
I know my suggestion will fall on deaf ears, but even so, the compromise I would advise is a system of use-based advancement (not rewarding obnoxious things like jumping over and over for the sake of grinding skill like in Elder Scrolls) that throttles the increase of skill per use by implementing diminishing returns per time period. If you practice a skill over and over and over as fast as you can spam it, you'll get one or two normal gains, then little to nothing. If you use a skill once a minute, you'll make regular gains for a couple minutes and then it will taper off until the next hour, repeating the process to periods of days, weeks, and months. So instead of grinding things really fast, your best way to learn is to do things repeatedly over longer periods of time. Kinda like training and practice in real life.
Balance the diminishing returns, and then the daily crunchers, weekend warriors, and no-lifers will all see meaningful skill gains in return for their efforts, with those who spend more time playing having more opportunity for diversity, but little or no more potential for gaining more raw power. You will also not have anyone being rewarded for not playing, which ends up devaluing actual participation in the game.
If my most effective means of participating in this game is to not participate, I'll do exactly that, and go play something else without paying a subscription fee to a game that doesn't want me.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Starhammer, it sounds like you're willfully oblivious to the fact that having unlimited free time to collect resources, play markets, explore new areas, craft items, and generally just play the game is actually kind of nice. Please don't try to take all of that and then turn around and ask that it be made so others can't actually get anywhere in the game unless they have similar free-time.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I dislike the training and advancement system as thus far described very much. My character will not get any better at what he does in return for actually doing things.
I think you're only partially correct.
I think you'll train skills at the same speed as everyone else. However, as I understand it, we'll all need to use those skills in-game to pass whatever hurdles it takes to earn merit badges and class badges, so more time in-game will mean more rapid character advancement and more options available. You'll also have the potential to collect more resources -> more gold -> even more options based on time in-game.
So I'm thinking you'll do fine, based on the blog so far.
@Starhammer, it sounds like you're willfully oblivious to the fact that having unlimited free time to collect resources, play markets, explore new areas, craft items, and generally just play the game is actually kind of nice. Please don't try to take all of that and then turn around and ask that it be made so others can't actually get anywhere in the game unless they have similar free-time.
Having to hang around in the newby zone for a couple months until everyone is able to safely exit at a preplanned time isn't any better. I'm not trying to say that anyone who can't dedicate 23 hours a day should be stuck hanging back with the baggage train (for the record, I don't play that often either... I tend to go for bursts of a lot of playing over a few days, and then spend a few days mostly reading, watching movies, unleashing my arrogant beliefs on unsuspecting message boards, and so on). However, if someone can't spare the time to actually play a persistent world roleplaying game more than an hour or two a month, maybe this is not the best hobby for such a person, and expecting everyone to be trammeled to their pace is just gonna be boring.
If I find that I've done everything new I'm sufficiently skilled to do, such as exploring the safety zones, getting my butt whooped repeatedly in PvP by people who are much better than me, and then harvesting mediocre resources until I'd prefer to have a bot do it for me (solely because programming the bot would give me something new to do), and all that's left is to use the game as a glorified chat room with a very sophisticated communication interface... and I can't get any better at anything for another 3 weeks, I'll lose interest real fast, and go back to doing something where my activity makes a difference, at least for myself.
If PFO can't keep me entertained and involved, then it's no more the right hobby for me than than any activity based MMO is for someone who can only play for a couple hours a month.
PS: I'm not willfully oblivious, I'm aggressively skeptical. I've been through enough Alphas and Betas to see just how rare it is for a game that promises to be new and innovative and unshackled by traditional design methodology to actually end up as anything other than a WoW clone or a faltering open world gankfest that can't really support anything except clumsy RP and hard-core Grief vs Grief. I would very much like to see PFO live up to my hopes and dreams of what an MMO could be, but I'm not going to bother preparing for anything other than abject disappointment... anything else will be a pleasant surprise.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Having to hang around in the newby zone for a couple months until everyone is able to safely exit at a preplanned time isn't any better. I'm not trying to say that anyone who can't dedicate 23 hours a day should be stuck hanging back with the baggage train (for the record, I don't play that often either... I tend to go for bursts of a lot of playing over a few days, and then spend a few days mostly reading, watching movies, unleashing my arrogant beliefs on unsuspecting message boards, and so on). However, if someone can't spare the time to actually play a persistent world roleplaying game more than an hour or two a month, maybe this is not the best hobby for such a person, and expecting everyone to be trammeled to their pace is just gonna be boring.
Well I can say one of the areas you are off, is at least I believe you are largely overestimating how much skills, will directly effect your character. At least basing on much of what Vic Wertz has said, you won't be completely incapable of going to the harder areas from the start. Many of the comments from vic wertz are pretty direct about there not being dramatic jumps in power. Meaning more or less, the biggest hurdle that would make someone stay in the newbie zone, is likely the players knowlege of the game. There is very little implication that going to X area will be imposible because your skills are too low etc...
An experienced vet in eve who somehow say had his account wiped and is going on a 0 skilled character, would not have to spend a day in the newbie zone, he may not be flying the best ship on earth on day 1, but he could fairly quickly move into the areas he was before, not be quite as effective, but not be a worthless newbie either. That is also what many people are missunderstanding about the "can never catch up" viewpoint. The difference between a 40 million skilled character in eve, and a 5 million skilled character in eve, is not huge, it isn't gamebreaking, it is one of the smallest factors in the character.
Level advancement is more about gaining new options than about increasing the power level. Somebody who's trained ten levels is going to be only slightly less powerful than the person who has trained thirty, but the person who has thirty levels will have a much wider variety of potential actions to take.In Pathfinder RPG terms, imagine two wizards that can cast spells of exactly the same levels, but one of them has a lot more spells in his spellbook.
Starhammer, you seem to undervalue the advantage of your abundance of potentially available play time in this system.
You'll be able to explore most or all of the game world in a fraction of the time most everyone else will be able to, gathering bucket loads of information as you go.
You'll be able to gather piles of resources and tuck them safely away early on, even if you can't craft them into anything just yet. Odds are in your first few days you'll be able to see more stuff and gather more goodies than everyone else will be able to in anything less than a week, week and a half.
You will have the most single valuable resource of any sand box game like this: information and lots of raw materials, in that order. You may not be able to collect the Tar of Naptha from the Fiery Pits of Death in the ends of the map - but you will likely be one of the first to uncover that information. Information like this has value, whether tangible or intangible.
There is not likely to be a PFOWiki right out of the gate at a guess - to small to catch attention for such an effort. There may well not be one for the first year, two or three for that matter. This makes those who are in the know very desirable indeed.