Goblin Squad Member
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What I like about PnP, D&D-Online, WoW, ... is that I can get together with a group of RL (or online) friends and have a nice evening. Once every odd week if that often.
All that talk about PvP, economy, advanced player interaction, etc. makes it sound like this game will only be enjoyable if played very regularly.
Are casual Players factored into the design?
cheers.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Ryan has stated explicitly that PFO will be a great option as your 2nd game, precisely because it doesn't require the kind of grinds that most games require.
If you're not trying to conquer territory or the markets, then I would imagine you won't need to be active all that much.
It sounds very much like PFO will offer lots of instanced dungeon runs if that's what you're into, and I can't imagine how you would have to play often in order to be able to enjoy those.
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Goblin Squad Member
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All that talk about PvP, economy, advanced player interaction, etc. makes it sound like this game will only be enjoyable if played very regularly.
"All that" stuff can act as background world to eg Nihimon mentions dungeons to go off to do in "parties". Also perhaps scale will be what you are looking for, so not everyone wants to run a business or war in the game, and other players can provide you with contracts to "operate" their business interests, is going to be v-very interesting to turn up and find demand for your services in a time-frame that matches your preferences?
The other thing is skill-training, occurs even when not logged in, so the grinding mobs to level up should not be such a large problem of time sink of filler content into small xp gains to stay on top of other players.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Ryan has stated explicitly that PFO will be a great option as your 2nd game, precisely because it doesn't require the kind of grinds that most games require. --snip--
I guess I am kind of confused not just by this statement but by others, I thought they stated to reach level cap would take years?
I like the idea of a prolonged leveling experience among other things, but there is a lot of information that is contradicting around here regarding these questions.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Ryan has stated explicitly that PFO will be a great option as your 2nd game, precisely because it doesn't require the kind of grinds that most games require. --snip--I guess I am kind of confused not just by this statement but by others, I thought they stated to reach level cap would take years?
I like the idea of a prolonged leveling experience among other things, but there is a lot of information that is contradicting around here regarding these questions.
Not so, you're just missing information. They are building a skill system like Eve. You will most likely gain skills even as are you logged out. Then you need to do actions to earn merit badges that give you the actually bonuses. Once you get to merit level I'm willing to bet you can then start training in another skill as you earn the first badge. Read about it in detail here.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Gabrius, the main difference is that you won't have to grind to level cap. You'll be doing a lot of offline skill training with some amount of in-game activity to finalize the skill training.
Instead of having to kill 1,000 harpies to gain your next level, you'll have to do 6 weeks of offline skill training and kill 20 harpies (all numbers totally made up). There's no "grind", but it's still going to take a long time.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I admit that this is something of a concern for me as well. I'm not really a casual player, but I'm a long way from hardcore, and have a lot of real-life obligations that prevent me from logging into any game consistently and reliably.
I'm not so concerned about PFO being *enjoyable* for a casual player. I'm sure it will be, especially dungeon content. What I wonder about is things like player settlements. I'd rather not be sitting at work and worrying that someone might be burning my precious little level 1 tavern to the ground. I can't be in the game world to defend my creations 24/7, so I'm intensely curious to see what sort of systems will be in place to help defend them for me.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I admit that this is something of a concern for me as well. I'm not really a casual player, but I'm a long way from hardcore, and have a lot of real-life obligations that prevent me from logging into any game consistently and reliably.
I'm not so concerned about PFO being *enjoyable* for a casual player. I'm sure it will be, especially dungeon content. What I wonder about is things like player settlements. I'd rather not be sitting at work and worrying that someone might be burning my precious little level 1 tavern to the ground. I can't be in the game world to defend my creations 24/7, so I'm intensely curious to see what sort of systems will be in place to help defend them for me.
I think POS's (Player Owned Structures) will require you to have the means to defend such a structure via your guild. The allowed places one can build will be limited which means they will go to those that can A. Afford them and B. Defend them. Which usually falls under the realm of guilds with the people and the resources to do both. Now that isn't to say you can't wheel and deal for a spot in a kingdom which then falls under their protection but I would say expect to pay taxes to the kingdom for use of space and security. Course they might also add NPC protection but if a group of players want your space they WILL take it.
They might also allow a delay system like Eve, say when the building reaches 10% health it stops taking damage and can't be hurt anymore for 1-3 days. This gives the defenders time to rally. If they don't, oh well.
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Goblin Squad Member
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If GW is highly selective and careful in their application for admission process, there are players like me that plan to build the world in a way that allows for people to pop on and have fun.
This is not like most MMO's where you have to retain a close level range, once you get over the first bump, you can do everything with everyone outside of extreme super epic content, which you will eventually be able to do, but not as fast as the power-gamers.
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Goblin Squad Member
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The way I see it there will be need for a lot of people in a player run kingdom.
Unless in other games where all you need is 32 or 40 people to clear some instances, the elite guilds in PFO need many many more to defend, run and populate their creations.
I have no illusions over the fact that I will not have enough time to create something big in this game, but I have enough time and dedication to be part of something big, be it as a caravan guard, explorer, gatherer or soldier in times of war.
So, yes, I think that PFO will be extremely casual friendly in the way that everyone who wants to contribute is needed.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I'm intensely curious to see what sort of systems will be in place to help defend them for me.
Your best bet is to join a Chartered Company. I compiled a list of all the active Chartered Companies at the time in a Welcome to all the new folks thread about a month ago. I'll plug The Seventh Veil as a Company that has decided from the beginning to be fully-engaged, and to allow its members maximal freedom to play as they choose to, without forcing any requirements on them.
Or, you can do as Valkenr suggests and peacefully coexist with a Chartered Company and reap the benefits of the security their presence generates. Rest assured, there will be a significant presence of players whose mission will be to create safe places for casual players to enjoy the game, including the tavern- and even fort-building aspects of it, without having to stand alone against the forces of chaos and destruction.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I think that Pathfinder Online could almost be the definitive casual game, from a point of view that all of your time will be spent doing what you want to do rather than having to go out and run quests/grind mobs in order to level up to do what you want to do.
Everyone will have the opportunity to 'progress' their character at the same rate which leaves all of your play time to devote to questing/dungeons/crafting/kingdom building or whatever else it is that you are interested in.
Will 'hardcore' players have an edge? Of course, they always will no matter what the game is. Even in World of Warcraft which is without a doubt the most casual AAA MMO out there at the moment, those 'hardcore' still have an edge although it's been dulled greatly with recent expansions.
What I want to be able to do with my 2 hours or so a night is to come in, boot up and be able to kick back with my company mates and play the game rather than having to catch up on those who might have out-levelled me in other games.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I'm intensely curious to see what sort of systems will be in place to help defend them for me.Your best bet is to join a Chartered Company. I compiled a list of all the active Chartered Companies at the time in a Welcome to all the new folks thread about a month ago. I'll plug The Seventh Veil as a Company that has decided from the beginning to be fully-engaged, and to allow its members maximal freedom to play as they choose to, without forcing any requirements on them.
Or, you can do as Valkenr suggests and peacefully coexist with a Chartered Company and reap the benefits of the security their presence generates. Rest assured, there will be a significant presence of players whose mission will be to create safe places for casual players to enjoy the game, including the tavern- and even fort-building aspects of it, without having to stand alone against the forces of chaos and destruction.
Hmm, didn't know people were already making "guilds"...this merits research into these chartered companies.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Hmm, didn't know people were already making "guilds"...this merits research into these chartered companies.
From LFG! (Looking for Group!):
We want to encourage folks to begin self-organizing even before the game is ready for testing. We'll do our best to recognize those organizations that get created early, especially if they announce their existence on our messageboards.
A lot of us announced our presence and intentions shortly after that blog.
There have been some attempts to maintain threads that list all the announced Chartered Companies, but without the ability to edit old posts, it's not really practical. As it is, you can probably search for the terms "Chartered Company" and get a pretty good list, or you can rely on those of us who've been around a while to point you in the right direction :)
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Goblin Squad Member
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Hmm, didn't know people were already making "guilds"...this merits research into these chartered companies.From LFG! (Looking for Group!):
We want to encourage folks to begin self-organizing even before the game is ready for testing. We'll do our best to recognize those organizations that get created early, especially if they announce their existence on our messageboards.A lot of us announced our presence and intentions shortly after that blog.
There have been some attempts to maintain threads that list all the announced Chartered Companies, but without the ability to edit old posts, it's not really practical. As it is, you can probably search for the terms "Chartered Company" and get a pretty good list, or you can rely on those of us who've been around a while to point you in the right direction :)
Yeah already read the blog from start to finish, and I'm already going through the list from the thread you started. Seeing which shoe, if any, fits. (And yes the inability to not edit posts later sucks. Most of all for information threads.)