'Core Launch' when the floodgates open

[Rokolith]

PFO is a very interesting project with huge potential, especially interesting is this idea of a barebones launch where the players help decide what should go into the game (See http://paizo.com/forums/dmtz6k9j?Goblinworks-Blog-Time-Keeps-On-Slipping-Sl ipping if you are unfamiliar with it).

The idea of the launch is to attract and iterate on player feedback, making a game that suits the players, make co operatively with close communication with the developers. This sounds great on paper, and no matter what happens it is an awesome experiment and I persnoally can't wait.

But here is the crux of the matter, what bothers me... is that a huge portion of the MMO playerbase do not want what Pathfinder Online is already at its core, quoting Ryan Dancey "Pathfinder Online will be an Open World game with Limited PvP and Limited Loot.". And they will whine. The whine will be so loud and so constant that half of the posts on the forums will be "rules are too hardcore! lost all my stuff" at least at the beginning, when people who have never played a game that actually lets you fail and diminish instead of just having to do it over again (talking about loot dropping). Especially in the beginning stages, MMO forums are clogged full of people pleading for every little thing to be changed to suit them, and often their poor or lazy playstyles better. I don't mean to sound harsh, but I've seen it with every MMO I've ever played at launch.

<<TLDR start here>>
So here is the question, Since PFO is going to have a launch and (at least early) development strategy that lets player feedback more easily become changes to the game, how is the line going to be drawn for what is listened to and implemented, and what is seen as invalid and disregarded?

[hewhocaves]

Its my understanding that there won't be 'floodgates' due to the staggered opening. Presumably the first few tiers of players will be those who agree with the game's philosophy beforehand and the vast majority of posts will be of the positive feedback variety. Rinse, repeat.

The question is, when will this max out (i.e. what is the max # of potential people on planet earth with internet who like this style of play). For that, I have no answer. The game that this is being modeled after still hasn't hit its peak, so there's no data. (theres a graph of Eve subscriptions somewhere that illustrates their strategy).

[AvenaOats]

As hewwhocaves says. Ideally once that sort of established perspective is set in the founder population, a bit of social proofing kick in.

For everything else, there's always... The Goblin Works Blog.

[Nihimon]

Rokolith wrote:

... how is the line going to be drawn for what is listened to and implemented, and what is seen as invalid and disregarded?

I'd imagine the best answer is that the line will be drawn by Goblinworks based on what they like. I can't imagine there would be any objective criteria for judging whether or not a suggestion has merit - it'll be very subjective and totally up to Goblinworks.

[Mcduff]

I would also add that it's partly up to us (fans who are interested in what the game has to offer) to respond to innane forum posts and whining. I've been on the forums less than a week at this point and I've already seen multiple posts complaining about core elements that aren't going to change ("100% of people will gank and 100% of them will loot EVERY TIME!!!") So far in each case there has been a near immediate response from other forum users explaining why some of the gameplay elements are part of the core concept and wont be changing.

So while the developers are looking for player feedback, there's no reason we can't help weed out some of the less than helpful posts.

[Andius]

I think the staggered launch will largely prevent this. The first wave will likely be the people most in love with this game's concepts. Even those not 100% on board with the PVP now will probably build an affection for it once they have been playing it a while, or leave.

I started as a carebear myself. My introduction to PVP was when war was brought down on my peaceful little server in Freelancer and I got angry enough to stand up and fight. Once I got the taste of blood... I've been an open world PVP enthusiast ever since.

So I am guessing by second wave over 90% of the games population will appreciate open world PVP. When that 2nd wave comes, some will drop sub, some will get a taste of blood and love it. And by third wave 90% will be on board again. And on third wave...

You get the picture. This is part of why GL is going to try hard to oppose griefers, but I don't even wish to be fully effective in that battle. I don't want people who may be cut out for this game to leave because the vet population just hangs around starter towns ganking newbs all day. But I honestly hope those who would ingrain themselves in this community as the leaders of a "Get rid of Open World PVP!" movement, get ganked, and leave this game with their tears trailing behind. Luckily I think the players we want to keep will be able to handle randomly getting killed every once in awhile as long as it isn't a every time they leave town sort of thing, and the ones we want to lose will ragequit over once every day or two.

[DeciusBrutus]

The rate of people who premptively ragequit has been pretty constant. Considering that a roughly constant percentage of people aren't going to like PFO, that indicates that we are still getting people who take a few moments to learn more.

[GrumpyMel]

Yeah, I never took the model that GW described as being "Design by Committee" anyway. So I don't see much danger of the game shifting it's core design goals even if there were people in the initial play groups who disagreed with the games core philosphy (which I really don't expect to see many of anyway).

I see it more as the Developers trying to fine tune the details of how thier design works and using the player base as a sounding board and test group to get a better feel for how those designs shake out and what needs adjusting. I expect everything they do and all feedback they get is going to be put through the filter of the basic design goals they want to achieve for the game.

So even if for some crazy reason (and I don't ever expect this to happen) the player base turned around and said "You know, on second thought, we really think you should make this a themepark with no PvP instead.", I don't expect GW to actualy do any such thing.

[Waffleyone]

Ditto on the staggered release thing: not every random shmuck will be getting in for the first few months. Also, there will be a formalized input system - this could make it clear which players complain about everything, what ratio has what perspective, and which players have more or less valid feedback and should be taken more seriously/lightly.

With a formalized system, important feedback/trends could be reasonably easily pulled awaay from the fluff. I don't know how their system will work, and thats fine, but here are some examples of player groups and how to examine their feedback to get the most out of it:
- Pessimists/Complainers: Complain and give low ratings to nearly everything. Give note to when they like stuff.
- Fanboys: Love everything. Give note when they dislike things.
- Wishy-Washy: Generally give very moderate feedback (think giving 2 1/2 to 3 1/2 stars to everything). Give note when they feel strongly.
- Special Interest Groups: Always always support or dislike given features. Filter them out sometimes to see how the greater community feels.
- Dreamers/Ramblers: Write novellas about features or visions that they have for the game. Note their ratings, set their writings aside for casual reading time.
- Excellent Contributors: Consistently give great feedback and make good points without rambling. Make sure that everything they say gets read closely.
- Jerks: Only contribute to b*$#+. /ignore.

I'm imagining a system you can open up in game/in a browser, soliciting feedback on specific changes/systems etc, which also pops up while the game is patching, to gather players' views/insights.

Certainly the feedback will be easier to parse than people having conversations on a message board. Also, in general, more useful.

[Nihimon]

Waffleyone wrote:

I'm imagining a system you can open up in game/in a browser... to gather players' views/insights.

Certainly the feedback will be easier to parse than people having conversations on a message board.

I agree with most everything you said, except for what I've quoted.

In general, any system that relies on the users to meaningfully organize their own input will probably not produce very useful data. I believe this is the kind of thing where there is no substitute for human judgment. Having Ryan and Vic read the boards themselves makes a huge difference in how our input is processed by them. Done right, it could easily be a full-time job just reading through the forum threads looking for useful or novel ideas and then organizing them and formalizing them for presentation to the devs.

[Vic Wertz]

While the post-launch development period will involve a lot of player input, it's not "design by committee," and unless everyone agrees something has gone terribly wrong, it won't involve rewriting the fundamentals. It's about letting the community guide the development focus; essentially, answering the question "what should we do next?"

[Waffleyone]

Fair enough (to both) and thanks for the insight into the plan =)

[Onishi]

To me it sounds like GW's got it's solid CORE of concepts that they absolutely believe necessary to developing the game as they plan for it. The fundimentals if you will, those aren't changing no matter what, then they have things they are modifying adding etc...

I know quite a few times I've seen things in the blogs that were discussed on the forum, and a good deal of them were things we had discussed, I can clearly see our input has already shown to effect and assist the development team in drawing up the framework for the game they are going to build.

Now of course when an idea flat out contradicts the fundimentals of the game, or causes unpreventable flaws, no matter what percentage of the population wants it, the development team holds firm.

Lets take the stealth for example, at the time of the post, the idea of granual stealth (IE some can see it but others on the same side), had a clear majority in favor, I'd say 4:1. The dev team noted that partial stealth would almost certainly be overcome by cheaters leading to problems. Despite the community wishing it wasn't so, they didn't adjust their views.

Same goes for PVP. Flash back to the archive from the early days when the open PVP anouncement was first made. We must have had 5 or 6 topics begging them to change their mind, and the devs said, that open PVP is a core tennent of the game design they have in mind, if you want a non pvp game, pick one of the hundreds out there or write your own.

[Fire Bud]

Vic Wertz wrote:

While the post-launch development period will involve a lot of player input, it's not "design by committee," and unless everyone agrees something has gone terribly wrong, it won't involve rewriting the fundamentals. It's about letting the community guide the development focus; essentially, answering the question "what should we do next?"

So I just have to brainwash the community, mwahahaha.

/pyramid hands

I like the concept personally because it keeps that community aspect that you guys have helped created around here while also acknowledging that most the stuff developers give us is s#%$ we don't want.

But you know bounty hunting is coming, might as well start working on it :P

[Darkren]

Half of controlling how much people whine is by controlling the quality of equipment they can receive.
When DDO first came out, people were getting loaded down with elemental burst weapons and greater bane weapons, and vorpals, and smitings, and banishings. At level 10.

Usually, DMs wait to introduce those things to make them more intimidating when they do get introduced.

In any case, if you go and lose a few +3 items, it's not all that big a deal.

If you play for a long time, are experienced, and lose a vorpal, then ye, it's something harsh, but by that time, you should understand its value because of what you had to go through to get it.

Has permadeath been decided yet? either for it, or against it?

I find EVE's approach to permadeath very appealing... have a clone to preserve a certain amount of skill points.

permadeath only when you have no clone.

Then again, there's the simple comment I have to every Final Fanasty cut scene, in terms of perma death...
"Why not use a pheonix down?"

[Waffleyone]

Darkren wrote:

Has permadeath been decided yet? either for it, or against it?

Short answer: No permadeath. Long answer: Blog Post - To Live and Die in the River Kingdoms

[Onishi]

Darkren wrote:

Has permadeath been decided yet? either for it, or against it?

I find EVE's approach to permadeath very appealing... have a clone to preserve a certain amount of skill points.

permadeath only when you have no clone.

Then again, there's the simple comment I have to every Final Fanasty cut scene, in terms of perma death...
"Why not use a pheonix down?"

Pretty certain that permadeath is a non-factor, it still is similar to eve (from players who talk about the game, I didn't even know it was possible to not have a clone). The blog post to live and die in the river kingdoms, combined with Ryans recent comments, pretty much says that on death you re-appear at your bind point, with whatever is in your weapon and armor slot. Everything else you have remains at the husk of your corpse where you died. If someone loots your husk they get a random assortment from what you dropped and everything else vanishes, if you make it to your husk first... you can recover everything and continue.

[Darkren]

That still doesn't seem so bad, considering the biggest thing will be skills, if they're gonna be real-time based to acquire.

[Ryan Dancey]

There is no permadeath in EVE. In EVE if you die without a clone you are reborn with a loss of skill points. You lose a rank of a skill and that could represent 15 minutes or 45 days depending on the skill and rank you lose.

[Coldman]

I don't think people will have a problem with limited open PvP/limited looting.

Given Eve online is a heavy inspiration for how danger is cultured in PFO, a broad spectrum of players from many playstyles can find their comfort zone and know what they're getting themselves in to (given the choice between low and high risk areas). We've hopefully come a long way from dropping players naked in a wood with a dagger and wishing them the best.

[Mcduff]

Heck, in Eve there are people who avoid combat altogether, opting to become pure crafters or play the market all day. Personally this style isn't for me, but I'd much prefer to play a game that allows it.

[Arlock Blackwind]

I agree Mcduff there is alot of good things about being a non-combat Character but not a whoal lot of players will be that of-course. if anything I think there should be a an option for non-combat classes. there is of course in the books classes like expert and commoner and even noble's. my point being that these could be player classes to represent the (I don't want to fight I want to do this) kind of players I mean how neat would it be for my wife to play a noble's daughter and have me to always be by her to protect her? take it as you will people pvp or not pvp that is the question.