Discussion thread for new blog entry What To Expect From Early Access Beta
Goblin Squad Member
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I liked the blog update, though I was sad to hear about micro-transactions not being included. I'm happy to pay for a subscription during early access beta. However, I'm assuming that the subscription will only allow us to advance the skills of 1 character at a time. If this is the case, then it will limit players opportunities to try out different archtype and skill combinations, which could be helpful in discovering any pesky bugs that make it thru alpha.
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CTO, Goblinworks
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@Ravening: That's a great point. We'll have to figure out something along those lines for Beta. We can't commit to this yet, but I suspect we will be giving out some MTX currency during Beta, and maybe that will allow folks to advance another character. Otherwise, I'm sure we can just give out direct credit for second character advancement.
Goblinworks Executive Founder
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I also would like to see multiple characters in Beta, even if that means a second character is added later in the Beta test. Since we will be testing the skill system, a way to reset skills (up to level x or whatnot), would help us experiment with how the skills work together. Thank you!
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CEO, Goblinworks
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@All - this got out a bit ahead of me today; I had to go and deal with a car repair.
Mark authored this special "Friday Blog" so we could link to it from the main text of the Kickstarter, but I didn't get that link built before you found it. :) Anyway, it's there now.
I'm reasonably sure we'll figure out how to allow multiple characters during the Beta since that's a pretty important part of how we expect people to play the game long term, but until we get further along we probably shouldn't speculate too much on how that gets implemented. :)
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Ravening: That's a great point. We'll have to figure out something along those lines for Beta. We can't commit to this yet, but I suspect we will be giving out some MTX currency during Beta, and maybe that will allow folks to advance another character. Otherwise, I'm sure we can just give out direct credit for second character advancement.
Awesome. Thanks for taking this into consideration.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@All - this got out a bit ahead of me today; I had to go and deal with a car repair.
Mark authored this special "Friday Blog" so we could link to it from the main text of the Kickstarter, but I didn't get that link built before you found it. :) Anyway, it's there now.
I'm reasonably sure we'll figure out how to allow multiple characters during the Beta since that's a pretty important part of how we expect people to play the game long term, but until we get further along we probably shouldn't speculate too much on how that gets implemented. :)
Quite understandably.
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Goblin Squad Member
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As a soon-to-graduate Game Design student, this has been a really fantastic opportunity to see some of the consideration that a world-class team puts into a new project!
I'm incredibly excited to get to watch this game come to life, and proud to Kickstart it alongside so many other Pathfinder fans!
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Goblin Squad Member
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Some suggestions -
Allow people to accrue actual skill like normal, but put in a similar mechanism like eve did when they changed learning skills a while back to refund skill points and allow player to re-invest into different skills, or even different "characters", say once a month.
This allows you to make wholesale balancing changes without completely gimping characters as they can change skills and would allow people to try out different classes and decide on a final class towards the end of early access.
Likewise you could offer temporary boosts (look, everyone get 6 mos free TEMPORARY training this week so we can try out higher level abilities!), ask people to switch classes/races on a temporary basis if needed to spread the beta to "unpopular" choices, etc.
I know it requires a bit more coding, but I think the benefits towards the overal project and beta could be worth it.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Some suggestions -
Allow people to accrue actual skill like normal, but put in a similar mechanism like eve did when they changed learning skills a while back to refund skill points and allow player to re-invest into different skills, or even different "characters", say once a month.
This allows you to make wholesale balancing changes without completely gimping characters as they can change skills and would allow people to try out different classes and decide on a final class towards the end of early access.
Likewise you could offer temporary boosts (look, everyone get 6 mos free TEMPORARY training this week so we can try out higher level abilities!), ask people to switch classes/races on a temporary basis if needed to spread the beta to "unpopular" choices, etc.
I know it requires a bit more coding, but I think the benefits towards the overal project and beta could be worth it.
I wish!
My main will most definitely be Half Elf or Half Orc. Neither race will be available in beta. I guess I could play my alt through beta and then switch but i'd much rather transfer that time and money spnet to the char I really want to play.
I imagine a good 10-20% of the players in here are in the same boat.
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Goblin Squad Member
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My main will most definitely be Half Elf or Half Orc. Neither race will be available in beta.
Don't be so certain. I think that adding new player races is definitely in the cards as the Kickstarter project gets closer to or exceeds its goals.
Question: The 2-4 free months of play from the Kickstarter, will they be used before or after release? Will there be an option to choose when to use them?
I'm not certain, but I would expect that free time to start immediately when you activate your account. I don't see why you couldn't have a first-month invite but choose not to activate your account for a while, but that's just my personal opinion.
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Goblin Squad Member
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EDIT: Blah blah blah just read Summersnow's post above.
When a skill is changed during beta and is there any sort of skill refund (EVE has something like this) so that the XP can be applied to something else?
What about AFTER release? I realize that beta folks might just have to suck that up and deal with it, but after release it might be a very good thing to be able to reassign skill points if things get changed.
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Goblin Squad Member
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This exactly met my expectations of what GW was going to do. It's a sensable way to grow and build a game of this type and I'm actualy glad to see it's paid. PFO getting a revenue stream as early as possible helps improve the chances of the games long term viability without reliance on outside funding sources that come with complications that could hobble the vision of what the game wants to be.
It wasn't really touched on in this blog, but I think starting out small and having gradual controled growth also helps address some of the community issues that can plague games like PFO. When you have a smaller community, one where players are more likely to "know" each other and one where everyone has some investment (putting down real money)in both the game and thier characters, it helps curb some of the more negative social behavior that happens in MMO's.
I'm not saying that there won't be anyone who acts like a "jerk"...it can and probably will happen. However nothing breeds bad behavior like relative "anonymity" and a lack of investment. It's just axiomatic, if someone goes to a place and they know no one knows who they are or will likely ever see them again and they paid nothing to get in, you can observe the difference in behavior between that and a place where they had to pay some entrance fee and they are well known and expect to have to interact with the people there on a regular basis in future.
It's not that there is any inherent difference in the makeup of the basic nature of the people in such environments, it's just that when people understand that there is some lasting consequence for thier behavior, it helps curb some of the more negative impulses that might tempt them.
As a player of many MMO's and tabletop games I was truly excited to hear that Pathfinder Online was being made. After the announcement of a second Kickstarter, open PVP and now a Paid Beta, I have lost all interest now. All of these things have caused me to lose faith in Goblinworks as a company I would rather have seen this product done be a real team of MMO developers and not some amateurs that are to afraid to take a risk in the development process, at any point apparently. Seriously, a beta you expect people to pay for?
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Goblin Squad Member
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As a player of many MMO's and tabletop games I was truly excited to hear that Pathfinder Online was being made. After the announcement of a second Kickstarter, open PVP and now a Paid Beta, I have lost all interest now. All of these things have caused me to lose faith in Goblinworks as a company I would rather have seen this product done be a real team of MMO developers and not some amateurs that are to afraid to take a risk in the development process, at any point apparently. Seriously, a beta you expect people to pay for?
Open PvP and paid beta were known well before(a year) the 2nd kickstarter, guess you weren't that excited... *shrug*
I urge new readers to ignore the above poster's insight into what makes a game developer good, and thank Goblinworks for not making another doomed to fail and go totally free to play 'wow clone' and letting us know their ideas and pick their brain with community interaction 1000x greater than any game to date. If EA couldn't do it... twice... what would make anyone think another big studio is going to make a successful PvP-lite game?
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Goblin Squad Member
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Open PvP and paid beta were known well before(a year) the 2nd kickstarter, guess you weren't that excited... *shrug*
I urge new readers to ignore the above poster's insight into what makes a game developer good, and thank Goblinworks for not making another doomed to fail and go totally free to play 'wow clone' and letting us know their ideas and pick their brain with community interaction 1000x greater than any game to date. If EA couldn't do it... twice... what would make anyone think another big studio is going to make a successful PvP-lite game?
+1
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Goblin Squad Member
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As a player of many MMO's and tabletop games I was truly excited to hear that Pathfinder Online was being made. After the announcement of a second Kickstarter, open PVP and now a Paid Beta, I have lost all interest now. All of these things have caused me to lose faith in Goblinworks as a company I would rather have seen this product done be a real team of MMO developers and not some amateurs that are to afraid to take a risk in the development process, at any point apparently. Seriously, a beta you expect people to pay for?
Mechwarrior Online is another one. Someone posted a list somewhere around here with I believe at least 3 others.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Persistence I haven't scanned the other blog post messageboards for an answer as yet, but I do have a question regarding persistence. I can certainly appreciate the necessity of possible changes affecting characters from beta to "final". For me the big question is player developed settlements, charter/guild organizations, and other player developed impacts on gameworld environment during the beta . I am an admitted story-geek and for a guy who likes to write as much as 5,000 word of character back story, I am very excited about the ability to craft my own story as I play in the beta. (I have contributed at the Crowdforger Pioneer level.) However, this joy will be somewhat muted if the settlements, commercial enterprises, and PvP interaction structures I develop in a year of beta testing were reset to 0 when it goes live. How does Goblinworks look at dealing with the impact of a year of player development in the world when the product goes public?
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Harad Navar
There will be no wipe after beta.
It's not really a beta, it's more of a soft opening to seed the world slowly.
Settlements will probably not be seeing a rise until just before 'beta' ends, or shortly after the official launch happens.
If you go and read the first few blog entries, it gives you a good idea of the game plan.
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Goblin Squad Member
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However, this joy will be somewhat muted if the settlements, commercial enterprises, and PvP interaction structures I develop in a year of beta testing were reset to 0 when it goes live.
The plan is to never reset anything during or after Beta / Early Enrollment.
From What To Expect From Early Access Beta:
Many publishers wipe out player accounts after Beta. We want player-controlled settlements to develop during Early Access so that on Release, there is an existing structure to the world and existing chartered companies for new players to join. This means we will not be wiping after Beta.
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Goblin Squad Member
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(Prophesy): Unless the mechanics are not implemented...
Dispite predictions to the contrary, settlements will be formed WELL before anyone would have expected.Never underestimate the power of mountain dew-fueled gaming folk. :)
Except GW isn't putting them in the release(beta) game, they are 'content to be added'. Hopefully they will come out when people are getting the necessary skills and materials together.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Except GW isn't putting them in the release(beta) game, they are 'content to be added'. Hopefully they will come out when people are getting the necessary skills and materials together.(Prophesy): Unless the mechanics are not implemented...
Dispite predictions to the contrary, settlements will be formed WELL before anyone would have expected.Never underestimate the power of mountain dew-fueled gaming folk. :)
Correct. I just chuckle when I read people that make statements as to how long such and such will take when we all know otherwise.
Granted, if they're not implementing it, then yeah, it's hard to establish a settlement when the code ain't there. :)
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Goblin Squad Member
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As a soon-to-graduate Game Design student, this has been a really fantastic opportunity to see some of the consideration that a world-class team puts into a new project!
I'm incredibly excited to get to watch this game come to life, and proud to Kickstart it alongside so many other Pathfinder fans!
You know, this post puts me in mind to ask whether GoblinWorks will make use of interns.
I have a career with only a few years to go til retirement, but I know there is young talent out there who would work for a relative pittance in exchange for real game development experience on a shipped title after release, and it might provide talent resources that would otherwise be prohibitively expensive.
So are there intern opportunities with the development team?
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Goblin Squad Member
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Hmmm... yet many work remotely, and I can think of less useful fields than financials when so much of the focus is on the game economy. Who knows what might be possible? Once you graduate it may be awhile before the right opening appears... and one way to network for the right opening is to engage in a variety of activities.
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Goblin Squad Member
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So the community funds the project with two kickstarters and we still also have to pay to be in the beta?
Has any one at paizo or goblin works risked any of there money? I may end up eating that question, but it just seems like wth man, part of entrepreneurial endeavors is risk, and with the risk there is a chance for reward.
Its almost insulting to ask for more I think.
sorry if this post is late, I was just one catching up on the blog.