Added discussion thread for RESPECT: Find Out What It Means to Me!.
Goblin Squad Member
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On the other hand, where would we be without espionage, betrayal and sabotage? A way to obfuscate or mislead others about one's alignment is a necessity.
A very welcome acknowledgement. I hope there are strong incentives to encourage players to use their mains to accomplish that espionage, betrayal and sabotage, rather than rolling up throwaway alts.
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Goblin Squad Member
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By the way, the art looks absolutely fantastic. I'm especially impressed by Seoni, and even more anxious now to start playing with the character creation engine :)
Just a reminder that it would be totally awesome to release that part early and let us spend weeks perfecting our characters before the servers really open up.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I like that there are strong supporting mechanisms for alignment and reputation. I believe this can only lead to a strong and unique gaming environment that isn't just a hodge-podge of everyone out for themselves.
Artwork looks good! But, I sort of expect that in today's gaming environment.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I was just looking at an older blog where this map was put out, and I don't see Fort Inevitable on it.
Am I blind? Or does it have another name? Or is it maybe hidden?
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Goblin Squad Member
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The gods are also a meddlesome bunch, and they grant and withhold favors to those who espouse their faiths and follow their teachings—including adherence to the god's preferred alignment, although many are fickle, so that one may never assume anything about a god's intentions or actions.....
So can we expect the gods to be directly involved in the game world or is it a behind the scenes game mechanic?
How are we going to know the alignment of actions in the game?
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Goblin Squad Member
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So can we expect the gods to be directly involved in the game world or is it a behind the scenes game mechanic?
Unknown.
How are we going to know the alignment of actions in the game?
Trial and error.
You will be notified before an action you take has a meaningful alignment consequence.
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Goblin Squad Member
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By the way, the art looks absolutely fantastic. I'm especially impressed by Seoni, and even more anxious now to start playing with the character creation engine :)
Just a reminder that it would be totally awesome to release that part early and let us spend weeks perfecting our characters before the servers really open up.
I agree that the two renders shown are pretty awesome to see, and a nice tangible expression of progress. I'd like to caution that the level of detail shown is not likely to represent the actual in-game renders, but its still nice to see!
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Goblin Squad Member
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The gods are also a meddlesome bunch, and they grant and withhold favors to those who espouse their faiths and follow their teachings—including adherence to the god's preferred alignment, although many are fickle, so that one may never assume anything about a god's intentions or actions.....So can we expect the gods to be directly involved in the game world or is it a behind the scenes game mechanic?
How are we going to know the alignment of actions in the game?
Good. A little of "black box" in how things are expected to pan out with alignment system can act as a very good thing, to keep players on their toes.
I'm happy to hear there is a distinction between Alignment & Reputation also and that detection and information services on both of these are some form of useful ability and currency.
Players will select an alignment for each character during character creation. Actions players take will tug at each character's alignment, shifting it this way and that. A prolonged series of minor actions, a few significant actions, or a single monumental action could shift a character's alignment into a whole new position.
Ah, that's interesting, so a player could choose straight off the bat to go for chaotic evil. My theory that players would all start Lawful Good and "drift" based on actions is out then. So there's going to be a lot of distinct alignments from the start with presumably different motivations to work within those alignments...
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Goblin Squad Member
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Players will select an alignment for each character during character creation. Actions players take will tug at each character's alignment, shifting it this way and that. A prolonged series of minor actions, a few significant actions, or a single monumental action could shift a character's alignment into a whole new position.Ah, that's interesting, so a player could choose straight off the bat to go for chaotic evil. My theory that players would all start Lawful Good and "drift" based on actions is out then. So there's going to be a lot of distinct alignments from the start with presumably different motivations to work within those alignments...
Well, why shouldn't they be allowed to pick their alignments? You do in the normal RPG.
You're also allowed to start out at a settlement that best matches your alignment. There is the chaotic settlement (Thornkeep) in the woods, the good settlement (Fort Riverwatch) in the north, and the lawful settlement (Fort Inevitable) in the south. So, any evil characters would likely be split between Fort Inevitable and Thornkeep depending on your variety of evil.
Goblinworks Executive Founder
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I really enjoyed this update! I've always liked the idea that the deities watched you closely and had their hands in as many cookie jars as possible or withholding their support when you are not faithful. I think it would be neat if there was a tiny % chance or game mechanic that the patron deity would do something direct and noticable to assist if the faithful character was more than just "in good standing" with their chosen patron deity. Perhaps later once everything else is in place and running the way everyone envisioned. I totally agree that there should be benefits and consequences to sticking as close to the alignment you chose or enjoy. I also think it's great that if you start out with one alignment but find that you play a totally different one that you seem to like best, it will automatically change you to the alignment that you exhibit. Very cool! I'm so excited about this project!
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Goblin Squad Member
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I am not liking the goblin model. It's well modeled and detailed, but the proportions are off, Pathfinder goblins haves stumpier limbs and bodies. Particularly the legs need to be shorter, and the torso could be a little shorter. The Pathfinder goblin design has always been an awesome mix of creepy an cute, but these proportions are loosing the cute.
Other then that, looks good. Keep up the good work.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I have an idea they will be slumped or stooped a bit. And I don't think those two pics were to scale.
I know they aren't to the same scale, and I agree, posing/animation will help sell it, but still, it locks blatantly off to me. The error jumps out at me at the merest glance. Fixing this now in the early stages of development will make tings easier for them in the long run.
Now, I don't know much about this goblin, it could be a specific character that happens to be really tall/skinny. They will also probably be modeling a great many different goblins and having different silhouettes for each is always a good idea. So maybe it won't matter too much.
Anyhow, now I'm on the verge of ranting. I'll be good.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Ryan, would you care to offer an opinion on whether you'd expect the game to have strong enough incentives to make it worthwhile for most sabotage/espionage to be done by mains who are actively hiding their alignment, or by alts?
I can't even begin to speculate on the mechanics but I can be pretty certain that most experts in this field will use disposable characters and alts. It would just be too risky to have a really experienced and deeply developed character get outed and rendered worthless because it was unmasked while under cover when other options will be far less painful.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I think it would be neat if there was a tiny % chance or game mechanic that the patron deity would do something direct and noticable to assist if the faithful character was more than just "in good standing" with their chosen patron deity.
How small?
1%? It would be happening constantly - like every couple of minutes.
.1%? Every couple of hours.
.01%? Every day.
.001%? Every couple of days.
And that's just with a couple of thousand active players. Get to tens or hundreds of thousands and you'd need even smaller percentages.
So what happens is that while such a thing is POSSIBLE, it's increasingly unlikely that it would PROBABLY happen to YOU. Which means it's a feature that would not add much value to the average player experience.
Unfortunately the idea that something randomly happens to characters in an MMO is really bad game design - either it is so commonplace that it shouldn't be random, or it is so infrequent that it is meaningless. This is kind of a corollary to the concept that "It would be awesome if you could do "X" means nobody will do "X"". If the random thing is cool, everyone will want it and be pissed when they don't get it. If the random thing is trivial, nobody will care and its wasted developer effort.
I think that such "divine intervention" should be scoped down to just Clerics and Paladins (and maybe Druids) and even then it should probably not be random.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I do like the bit on alignment, it mirrors exactly how I view alignment in these RPGs.
This also presents the start of an opportunity to me. To promote diversity within parties/guilds/kingdom it would be good to have each of the core classes, especially the kind of in-between classes, able to do something necessary that no one else can do, or do it way better then everyone else. In this instance, alignment detection.
Several classes can get alignment detection spells as they go, but only paladins get i as a class feature right from the get go. If additional focus is put on this on top of alignment being important both socially and mechanically if would ensure that Paladins would always be welcome in any party or guild or town, instead of being passed over for a fighter or cleric.
If similar specialization beyond just the classes basic roll can be found for every class it would be great for creating a place in every group for every class and ensure that no class is more relevant then the next. It'll also mean that more thought would be needed in the construction of a group.
I picture it as combat role specialization vs. social role specialization.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Ryan, would you care to offer an opinion on whether you'd expect the game to have strong enough incentives to make it worthwhile for most sabotage/espionage to be done by mains who are actively hiding their alignment, or by alts?I can't even begin to speculate on the mechanics but I can be pretty certain that most experts in this field will use disposable characters and alts. It would just be too risky to have a really experienced and deeply developed character get outed and rendered worthless because it was unmasked while under cover when other options will be far less painful.
And this is where reputation nicely counter-balances alignment. It's trivial to "switch" alignments by making a new character, but you have to start the reputation-building from scratch. Any reputation boosters your main could provide (such as an invite to a well-known organiziation) would theoretically link that alt back to the main, and thus defeat (or at least possibly compromise) the point of having an unassociated, disposable alt. Of course, with several layers of cut-outs or dupes, you can sufficiently obscure anything, but it's not just as simple as "Oh, new character."
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Goblin Squad Member
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Ryan, would you care to offer an opinion on whether you'd expect the game to have strong enough incentives to make it worthwhile for most sabotage/espionage to be done by mains who are actively hiding their alignment, or by alts?I can't even begin to speculate on the mechanics but I can be pretty certain that most experts in this field will use disposable characters and alts. It would just be too risky to have a really experienced and deeply developed character get outed and rendered worthless because it was unmasked while under cover when other options will be far less painful.
Thank you, again, for the direct answer.
Do you see the ability to obfuscate alignment being more useful in short-term situations, then? Perhaps where an Evil character is simply trying to insinuate himself into an adventuring party?
If not, would you mind describing a scenario where you envision this ability being useful?
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Goblinworks Executive Founder
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Given that alignment is closely associated with gods, would you consider allowing a settlement based on the Neutral deity Sivanah to be itself neutral? As a compromise position, it would not gain any of the advantages of being aligned, and would have the four corners of the alignment spectrum as prohibited (assuming that other aligned settlements would have only alignments opposed to them prohibited: LG would have all Chaotic and all Evil prohibited, but LN would only have all chaotic prohibited.) From a strict numbers standpoint, that would appear to give neutral settlements a small disadvantage.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Ryan, would you care to offer an opinion on whether you'd expect the game to have strong enough incentives to make it worthwhile for most sabotage/espionage to be done by mains who are actively hiding their alignment, or by alts?I can't even begin to speculate on the mechanics but I can be pretty certain that most experts in this field will use disposable characters and alts. It would just be too risky to have a really experienced and deeply developed character get outed and rendered worthless because it was unmasked while under cover when other options will be far less painful.Thank you, again, for the direct answer.
Do you see the ability to obfuscate alignment being more useful in short-term situations, then? Perhaps where an Evil character is simply trying to insinuate himself into an adventuring party?
If not, would you mind describing a scenario where you envision this ability being useful?
Any short term buff that hides alignment is actually just a high maintenance frequent use long term buff. If it works, the person looking to use it will just stock up as much as is feasible and spam as needed.
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Goblin Squad Member
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What if, instead of a divine intervention, the number of followers would decide what gifts or short term abilities to characters. If your god has X followers your shrines to that god will give some kind of short term loving. As the followers rise in number, the granted goodies rise also. This might also lead to more interesting recruiting in a settlement or Kingdom.
Basing that on level of shrine etc... that can work, the huge drawback I see if we are talking total followers, is that will quickly break the game down into a tri-theistic world. What I mean by that, is X god will have the most followers first, and thus be the best, as a result of course 90% of people playing in a compatible alignment will chose to follow him, which of course will result in even MORE people choosing that particular god. End result is any settlement, nation or organization worth its salt will be following the god that has the most goodies, only fringe small groups will even consider something other than the best god of that alignment.
That being said individual settlements, nations etc... being able to level up their shrines works well, even number of followers within that settlement works. People always have their own attachments likes and dislikes of what people they follow, the shrine can absolutely be a perk for why one would join a settlement, just as the infrastructure, army power, equipment manufactured etc... are all perks to encourage people to join.
Ryan any chance you can give some hints as to the intent of law/chaos axis. I'm still stuck on the comment that betraying a contract is a "chaotic" act. Is chaos intended to be an indicator of trustworthyness, or is that going to be the job of reputation. I do understand that is one heck of a topic that probably isn't going to be fleshed out for a long time as it is a heck of a concept that can't be agreed upon within 30 years of tabletop gaming having humans judge, let alone attempting to have a CPU judgable system.
Second thing, I have to question this one is more likely to be answerable. You've mentioned alignment and class ties will exist, then gave 2 examples of clerics and paladins. On the paladin side it is pretty clean cut, but I do have to ask, Ignoring the huge risks of alignment change, and assuming you have a clean cut system to avoid accidental and mistaken alignment changes, and people griefing certain classes to force them to shift alignment. What about re-aligning, quite a few stories of clerics of one alignment, changing alignment down the road and serving a god with a different alignment. The same goes for paladins turning into blackguards etc... If a good cleric turns evil, or an evil cleric turns good, do you intend to allow them to keep their former training and change to serve a diety that is in line with their new alignment, or do you intend for them to start from scratch if they do start over?
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Goblin Squad Member
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Great blog. The presentation looks slick, but I don't think it told us anything we didn't know (but it wasn't aimed at us). The renderings look cool (I like the goblin).
The meat of the blog is interesting. I was wondering about being a reputation broker even before I got to the bit about reputation information being a commodity.
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Goblin Squad Member
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"Alignment will affect the kinds of religious services that the character can receive. Healing, restoration, and resurrection from some forms of death may require divine intervention. Alignment will affect the character's relationship with social organizations, and may cause a character to be ejected from them if the character's alignment diverges from the expected norm of that organization. NPCs may be more or less willing to interact with characters based on their alignments. The gates of some settlements may be open or closed to a character based on alignment."
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Goblin Squad Member
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Players will select an alignment for each character during character creation. Actions players take will tug at each character's alignment, shifting it this way and that. A prolonged series of minor actions, a few significant actions, or a single monumental action could shift a character's alignment into a whole new position.Ah, that's interesting, so a player could choose straight off the bat to go for chaotic evil. My theory that players would all start Lawful Good and "drift" based on actions is out then. So there's going to be a lot of distinct alignments from the start with presumably different motivations to work within those alignments...Well, why shouldn't they be allowed to pick their alignments? You do in the normal RPG.
You're also allowed to start out at a settlement that best matches your alignment. There is the chaotic settlement (Thornkeep) in the woods, the good settlement (Fort Riverwatch) in the north, and the lawful settlement (Fort Inevitable) in the south. So, any evil characters would likely be split between Fort Inevitable and Thornkeep depending on your variety of evil.
Yeah, I was worried alignment and reputation would be one and the same thing: Ie people using it to game the system. But the split has solved that at a stroke.
Seems alignment adds diversity (motivation, interaction) to PfO as well character change over time?
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Goblin Squad Member
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Great update, i was waiting for some character concepts to show up.
The goblin looks awesome and i assume it only looks different from the original paizo goblin because it is standing tall.
Seoni looks a little too slick for my taste, the model lacks character.
The whole alignment part got me intrigued, everything that makes my characters interaction with the world change, is a good thing.
More possibilities are always welcome.
And nihimon do you not like the edit button, or is there some other reason, i'm oblivious off, that makes you post 4 times in a row?
cheers
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Diskord: Nihimon somehow manages to ask questions that Ryan is disposed to respond to, perhaps it's easier for Ryan to answer separate questions in separate posts? Either way he's doing something right! :)
yeah he definitly does :D
i ment the first four posts though, no questions there.alas its not a big deal, its just hard to overlook, maybe he wants to reach 2k posts asap or something.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I like a lot of what I read in this blog. And where I do like the idea about the reputation system, I worry how easy it is to rate someone.
You used the example of ‘ebay sellers’ for reputation, but I also know there are people who give low ratings just to spite them or they don’t like the seller for other means. What I would be concerned about is getting low marks when not deserved.
What I am guessing is how it may work is you broker a deal with another person, where you might perform or make something for them. And once the contract has been fulfilled, they have the opportunity to rate you.
What my concern is if you don’t have a good relation (in-game) with another character. So not to cause any waves with their main, they log into their alt, broker a deal with you, you perform the service for them, and they rate you lowly ‘just because’.
I hope there is a system in place to prevent the spiteful rater/reviewer.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I like a lot of what I read in this blog. And where I do like the idea about the reputation system, I worry how easy it is to rate someone.
You used the example of ‘ebay sellers’ for reputation, but I also know there are people who give low ratings just to spite them or they don’t like the seller for other means. What I would be concerned about is getting low marks when not deserved.
What I am guessing is how it may work is you broker a deal with another person, where you might perform or make something for them. And once the contract has been fulfilled, they have the opportunity to rate you.
What my concern is if you don’t have a good relation (in-game) with another character. So not to cause any waves with their main, they log into their alt, broker a deal with you, you perform the service for them, and they rate you lowly ‘just because’.
I hope there is a system in place to prevent the spiteful rater.
IMO the best way to deal with that, would be if the ratings were tied to the raters. Ah this rating comes from a nobody from the skum of the earth faction... OK that one can be ignored wow 500 bad reviews from ye old goon swarm, probably nothing to take seriously. Ah this rating comes from a well known hero from reputable charter X, that one should be taken seriously.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Any short term buff that hides alignment is actually just a high maintenance frequent use long term buff. If it works, the person looking to use it will just stock up as much as is feasible and spam as needed.
I wasn't asking about it being a "short term buff", I was asking about it being used in short-term cons.
And nihimon do you not like the edit button, or is there some other reason, i'm oblivious off, that makes you post 4 times in a row?
Honestly, I was a little embarrassed once I realized what I'd done. Usually, I try to compose a post while I'm reading the blog. Maybe I just got a little excited...
... maybe he wants to reach 2k posts asap or something.
Not really, although I'm happy to admit that I'm shamelessly trying to be "an active and contributing member of the global Pathfinder community" in order to increase my chances of getting in early :)
And thanks for the kind thoughts AvenaOats - I wish I had such high motives; the truth is I was just being excitable.
What my concern is if you don’t have a good relation (in-game) with another character. So not to cause any waves with their main, they log into their alt, broker a deal with you, you perform the service for them, and they rate you lowly ‘just because’.
I hope there is a system in place to prevent the spiteful rater/reviewer.
I don't think that's possible. If it were possible for the system to determine whether the rater was acting out of spite, there'd be no reason for the rater in the first place.
IMO the best way to deal with that, would be if the ratings were tied to the raters.
I believe this is essentially what will happen, because the ratings you see will be based on the ratings of the other people you know.
Perhaps, though, you were referring to giving the indirect reputations weight based on the indirect raters reputation in your eyes?
For example:
Bob has a High Opinion of Adam.
Chuck has a Low Opinion of Adam.
If I have an equally high opinion of both Bob and Chuck, I would expect to have a Neutral opinion of Adam.
However, if I have a High Opinion of Bob and a Low Opinion of Chuck, I would expect Chuck's opinion of Adam to be relatively less significant, so that I would still have a Mostly High opinion of Adam.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I don't think that's possible. If it were possible for the system to determine whether the rater was acting out of spite, there'd be no reason for the rater in the first place.
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I was not asking for the game to analyze if someone is being spiteful or not, that is a given that it cannot. Please do not take my request so literally.
What I meant is mechanics in place to prevent it, or discourage it, as much as possible. Onishi's idea is a good one, the only concern I'd have for it is some people are not going to look deeper and find the bad ratings are from the "Skum of the Earth" faction. Some will only see the overall rating and will automatically not want to do business with you.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I don't think that's possible. If it were possible for the system to determine whether the rater was acting out of spite, there'd be no reason for the rater in the first place.
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I was not asking for the game to analyze if someone is being spiteful or not, that is a given that it cannot. Please do not take my request so literally.
What I meant is mechanics in place to prevent it, or discourage it, as much as possible. Onishi's idea is a good one, the only concern I'd have for it is some people are not going to look deeper and find the bad ratings are from the "Skum of the Earth" faction. Some will only see the overall rating and will automatically not want to do business with you.
Well odds are, I'd assume people would be smart enough to run background checks on themselves first. When you get rejected, you can easily tell the person who and why, and they can re-check the reputation to verify you are telling the truth.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Yes, that's very true. I guess I still had ebay (or Amazon) buyers stuck in my head. Where they can contact (email) the seller and ask about their history of the negative ratings, most do not do so. But in PFO you can just interact with the seller, which makes it easier, and ask.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Hobbun, sorry, I meant no offense. There are many people in the world who don't understand the limitations of computers - I certainly didn't intend my answer to be condescending.
Your concern is entirely valid, and I think will be partially addressed by the simple fact that the ratings you see for someone new will be the ratings of the people you know, not just everyone's ratings for that person. If they take that a step further and weight those ratings based on your personal rating of the intermediary, then I think your concerns will be completely addressed.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I don't think that's possible. If it were possible for the system to determine whether the rater was acting out of spite, there'd be no reason for the rater in the first place.
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I was not asking for the game to analyze if someone is being spiteful or not, that is a given that it cannot. Please do not take my request so literally.
What I meant is mechanics in place to prevent it, or discourage it, as much as possible. Onishi's idea is a good one, the only concern I'd have for it is some people are not going to look deeper and find the bad ratings are from the "Skum of the Earth" faction. Some will only see the overall rating and will automatically not want to do business with you.
H, I think the community, generally speaking, will quickly figure out how best to deal with the ratings, as they do in the real world. Most folks know that you have to look a little "deeper" when it comes to ratings. There will always be people that make quick decisions based simply upon the overall rating, but I imagine they will be in the minority.
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Ryan, do you anticipate there to be a cap on the number of players in a Settlement?
Yes but that's very blue sky thinking. No hard number and not likely to be for a long time.
One issue with unlimited Settlement membership is that it would eventually create a situation where a small number of extremely big Settlements dominated the world - any time anyone tried to build another, the Big Guys would be incented to squash it before it was built, or only allow it if the new Settlement agreed to some kind of feudal serfdom role.
What I'd rather see is a heterogeneous mixture of small and mid-size Settlements.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Diskord: Nihimon somehow manages to ask questions that Ryan is disposed to respond to, perhaps it's easier for Ryan to answer separate questions in separate posts? Either way he's doing something right! :)yeah he definitly does :D
i ment the first four posts though, no questions there.
alas its not a big deal, its just hard to overlook, maybe he wants to reach 2k posts asap or something.
Diskord, the passive-aggressive thing is not helpful. Even if Nihimon didn't offer a reasoned and articulate voice for the community, which he/she does, it still wouldn't be necessary to take that approach with someone who happens to post a few times. But as you say, "not a big deal."