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I would be concerned that the islands with gates design would lend itself too much to a large organisation being able to effectively claim the island for itself by gate camping.
Anything that eliminates the establishment of chokepoints of such magnitude is a net gain in my opinion
Goblin Squad Member
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Ultimately I prefer the islands approach. There are a lot of interesting regions of Golarion and The Inner Sea region we will never see otherwise. Pretty much I can tell you what we'll see to the south east of the River Kingdoms. Rivers, forests, marshes, plains... everything you would expect to find in a not particularly mountainous temperate region.
If we connect to other areas there are grand mountains, ranging seas, deserts, frozen tundras, exotic jungles, the world wound...
People are going to get tired of the River Kingdoms eventually. We're all marked by Pharasma and confined to a small region of the world. The idea of this occurring to other places and allowing us to travel between them seems pretty appealing.
To me the big question is where should the first portal lead. To which the obvious answer is The Shackles. ;)
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Goblin Squad Member
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I would be concerned that the islands with gates design would lend itself too much to a large organisation being able to effectively claim the island for itself by gate camping.
I would expect the road leading into and out of the portal to be considered NPC Territory and have an appropriate Marshall presence.
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Goblin Squad Member
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It remains to be seen wether it makes sense to create several "islands" of territory and link them with some kind of gate, or if we just keep growing the contiguous map to the south and east into the River Kingdoms.Begin the speculation and discussion.
This would make life for merchants or those not interested in PVP very difficult, similar to low security areas in EVE. I would not welcome this simply because I think it would make life far too easy for bandits. I would prefer open borders with no gates to link them. We see this in other games with seamless transitions, so I see no reason PfO wouldn't be able to support this as well.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I would be concerned that the islands with gates design would lend itself too much to a large organisation being able to effectively claim the island for itself by gate camping.
Anything that eliminates the establishment of chokepoints of such magnitude is a net gain in my opinion
I'd like to see the portals inside unconquerable NPC cities and have more than one per region. For instance the portals in the River Kingdoms would be at Fort Inevitable, Fort Riverwatch, and Thornkeep. If The Shackles are opened up there would be Thornkeep <-> Pirate Town, Riverwatch <-> Steel Falcons Fort, Inevitable <-> Chelaxian Slaver Town portals.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I'd like to see the portals inside unconquerable NPC cities and have more than one per region. For instance the portals in the River Kingdoms would be at Fort Inevitable, Fort Riverwatch, and Thornkeep. If The Shackles are opened up there would be Thornkeep <-> Pirate Town, Riverwatch <-> Steel Falcons Fort, Inevitable <-> Chelaxian Slaver Town portals.I would be concerned that the islands with gates design would lend itself too much to a large organisation being able to effectively claim the island for itself by gate camping.
Anything that eliminates the establishment of chokepoints of such magnitude is a net gain in my opinion
Ah, I see! You mean portals to different portions of Golarion, not connections between hexes inside the River Kingdoms. My mistake!
Yes, this would indeed be a nice feature.
While putting them inside an NPC town is a possible solution it also raises issues when we want to march an army through that portal to conquer a settlement.
If the portals led to areas that were not candidates for settlement then I guess it would solve that issue but I am unconvinced it wouldn't raise a whole other set of issues
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Goblin Squad Member
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I think portals to "islands" outside the PFO River Kingdoms area would be more interesting if the Mark of Pharasma didn't work there. You die, you die.
Then nobody goes there. Permadeath doesn't work when XP is tied to a character and gained via realtime.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I think portals to "islands" outside the PFO River Kingdoms area would be more interesting if the Mark of Pharasma didn't work there. You die, you die.Then nobody goes there. Permadeath doesn't work when XP is tied to a character and gained via realtime.
Agreed, players who have invested in training and equipment in their characters would not want to risk it, even if the rewards were magnitudes greater. However, it might just be the place to test new builds with only a small investment of xp out of the eyes of other players. Also an interesting place to test new game elements without having to affect the entire system and have to roll back if it explodes. It could also be a great place to have the Worldwound.
An alternative, to keep meaningful the lore that the this part of the River Kingdoms is "special", you might respawn back in the River Kingdoms rather than somewhere in the island. Definitely a coin drain for the economy.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I wonder. Lots of considerations.
It could be not-connected initially so new characters get a chance to grow their own viable settlements possibly? Then add interchange connections? This would work with both eg initial barrier or sealed gate. The buying new characters of established guilds might be a problem but then it might not.
A new area either adds new materials to the economy or more of the previous.
Another consideration is the expense and danger of travel could become much higher eg early sea voyage failure rate?
Finally as alluded to what sort of variations on te rules o the river kingdoms might occur? Pharasma's Favour and otherwise that may affect gameplay a cold land needing furs, a tropical area with strange diseases that our chars immunity is not prepped for?
I'd like rivers and waterways traffic to forge the way forwards along the rivers of te river kingdoms and further out to sea even.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I'd rather see the map expand via mundane means for the most part. For perhaps the first year or so I would be happy if the edge of the map was expanded by a few hexes here and there. PFO will in a sense be an Epic 12th campaign. Meaning that the most powerful PCs will be roughly on par with a level 12 pnp character. With this in mind I think it would be out of place for dozens of gigantic permanent magic portals to dot the landscape.
I like the idea of a continuous world of hexes (for the most part, minus areas that are simply untraversable). Having different "sections" of the world entirely closed off from one another except through portals sounds contradictory to how the rest of the game is being built.
Surely I can't be the only one who favors a continuous world? I like the idea of having a large world that you can walk from one side of to another; one that really does feel like another world rather than a set of large instances with little to no real connection. I don't see why there can't be portals, but I also don't see why we can't have everything connected via hexes or waterways as well.
Edit: I think this is the problem I have with the island-only approach. That is a simulation of another world, whereas most of the game seems to be attempting to put as much in the hands of the players as possible and, rather than simulate, literally do what most games pretend to do.
I wonder. Lots of considerations.
It could be not-connected initially so new characters get a chance to grow their own viable settlements possibly? Then add interchange connections? This would work with both eg initial barrier or sealed gate. The buying new characters of established guilds might be a problem but then it might not.
A new area either adds new materials to the economy or more of the previous.
Another consideration is the expense and danger of travel could become much higher eg early sea voyage failure rate?
Finally as alluded to what sort of variations on te rules o the river kingdoms might occur? Pharasma's Favour and otherwise that may affect gameplay a cold land needing furs, a tropical area with strange diseases that our chars immunity is not prepped for?
I'd like rivers and waterways traffic to forge the way forwards along the rivers of te river kingdoms and further out to sea even.
I very much like your train of thought here. I can see such a thing being done (initial separation, then unification for reasons you listed and others).
If portals would be added as well as hex connections, then there would need to be a reason to use physical travel rather than portals. Two things come to mind.
1.) Have only a few portals evenly spaced, such that traveling would still be necessary.
2.) Have portals use a cooldown timer, or require a resource/gold to be used, so physically traveling could be cheaper or simply required.
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Goblin Squad Member
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IF the islands are large enough and IF the gates are many and varied enough to give the gatecamping defenders a real logistics problem then I could go with the island approach, especially if all the islands in turn also expanded and grew as time goes on.
Give those worldbuilders a career!
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Goblin Squad Member
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My train of thought is from someone who balances time in pvp and pve (you know the big headlight on the Sleipnir? I named it Carebear Stare).
I like a contiguous area and don't like islands+gates at all (at least for the first few years of the game). There are the previously stated reasons abut simulating a world and walking from one end to the other, the dev effort that would go into one player group not controlling a gate instead of real content, etc.
But really, we log in to have a reality show conflict drama with other players in real time. Are we there for a pve simulator? If you really get so bored of temperate forest that you'd stop playing PO were you really that involved?
Frankly I like what happens to the "neighborhoods" as game area expands outwards. A formerly wilderness fringe area becomes civilized and then a leader of in-game civilization, and the characters there grow and change with the space. I want some areas that are so insulated from conflict they're almost high-sec (but just because armies aren't marching through every other week doesn't mean assassins or small groups don't sneak in with their own agendas and keep everyone honest).
As an industrialist those areas of security to train an work are an asset to themselves. They'd be the engine cores of the economy that send material and people out to the wilderness for the other end of the spectrum of game fun.
But just because areas are highly stable doesn't make them permanent. If one of those areas did get invaded and successfully conquered the economic, political, and gaming ripples outward would be a tsunami with a drastic affect on the rest of the game, like it is in the world and as it should be. One of the biggest signs of success would be if people who don't even play started talking about POs major events like that.
Years and years down the line, I can see maybe opening up a new area with some sort of gating (multiple egresses with multiple entrances on the other side?) that adds something to how characters operate in the game. EVEs wormholes weren't just different colored space so players didn't get bored of Gas Cloud B in the background; they came with systems and impacts that fundamentally changed how players played that game. When PO has matured to that point, then it might be time to look at that.
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Goblin Squad Member
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IF the islands are large enough and IF the gates are many and varied enough to give the gatecamping defenders a real logistics problem then I could go with the island approach, especially if all the islands in turn also expanded and grew as time goes on.
Give those worldbuilders a career!
perfect agreement with Being!
additional thoughts (EDIT: now talking about hexes as islands, not the Shackles)
1) If the gate between two hexes is (as wide as) the entire side of the hex, the distinction blurs for players (but maybe not for coders).
2) what about fast travel and bandit hideouts? (Initially, that seems simpler with islands).
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Goblin Squad Member
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I'd rather see the map expand via mundane means for the most part. For perhaps the first year or so I would be happy if the edge of the map was expanded by a few hexes here and there. PFO will in a sense be an Epic 12th campaign. Meaning that the most powerful PCs will be roughly on par with a level 12 pnp character. With this in mind I think it would be out of place for dozens of gigantic permanent magic portals to dot the landscape.
I interpreted 'portal' as a mechanical term rather than necessarily being actual magical portals. Like how in Age of Conan you would talk to an NPC wagoneer/shipmaster/caravan master and pay for transport, then be 'teleported' to your destination.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I would strongly argue for a continuous/contiguous world for many of the same reasons that were argued above. Ultimately I find that loading screens are disruptive to immersion, even if the loading is quick. Also I think that if portals are implemented, gate camping will occur no matter what as there will always be a few gates that turn out to be more important than others. While I think ambushes are fine, I dislike gate camping because you rarely have a chance to do much besides try and muscle your way through.
For variety, one thing that could be considered is a plane or dimension directly opening up onto one side of the river kingdoms (like the worldwound). For those familiar with MtG, think the Phyrexian overlay. How it is handled is a different matter entirely, but I think it could be done.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I agree with Andius - we'll get fed up with forests and swamps eventually and wish for more varied environments.
Since they have to stick to Paizo's Golarion, there can't be a continuous expansion of the world into any other kind of landscape than what is found in the River Kingdoms. I for one would like to see high mountains, lands of ice and snow, coastal landscapes etc.
That being said, the gameplay (as HaradNavar pointed out) doesn't necessarily need to be identical in new regions in other parts of the world. Maybe a particular region already has a strong government, making creation of settlements there impossible. Instead the player experience there revolves around a dungeon, rare resources, NPC factions or something else.
Such a setup could allow for different gaming experiences within the same game, something I find to be an interesting prospect (if the parts are integrated well into a greater whole).
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Goblin Squad Member
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Ultimately I prefer the islands approach. There are a lot of interesting regions of Golarion and The Inner Sea region we will never see otherwise. Pretty much I can tell you what we'll see to the south east of the River Kingdoms. Rivers, forests, marshes, plains... everything you would expect to find in a not particularly mountainous temperate region.
If we connect to other areas there are grand mountains, ranging seas, deserts, frozen tundras, exotic jungles, the world wound...
People are going to get tired of the River Kingdoms eventually. We're all marked by Pharasma and confined to a small region of the world. The idea of this occurring to other places and allowing us to travel between them seems pretty appealing.
To me the big question is where should the first portal lead. To which the obvious answer is The Shackles. ;)
The problem with leaving the River Kingdoms is the havoc we could unleash on Golarion lore.
Except in the case of places like the World Wound, of course.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I would be strongly in favor of building one large continuously expanding open map, where it is possible to traverse from one corner of the map to another without the need to use artificial portals. From the immersion perspective there is nothing worse than having the "world" consist of totally isolated zones, which have little connection to each other. LOTRO pre Mines of Moria would be a near perfect example of how to build a seamless world.
Having said that, I do understand that somewhere down the line a single map may become too large or new map may be desirable for other reasons such as to allow for totally different types of landscape being introduced.
If it becomes necessary to cover great distances, such as traveling to an actual island or to a far away land, I would like to see this type of traveling being handled primarily by (simulated) boats, caravans and another mundane means. Add the risk of being attacked by pirates or bandits during the transit (controlled by either AI or players, e.g. in an instance popping up while an arrow on the map moves towards your destination à la Indiana Jones) and you would have a pretty awesome long distance traveling system.
Of course you would need to large enough (relatively) "safe zones" at each end of any such traveling system to minimize gate camping.
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Goblin Squad Member
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If the dev team did want to expand into new environments my first suggestion would be to open up the depths below the River Kingdoms.
When and if they allow dark elves this would be an excellent idea. Developing the Dark Lands in the same way we develop PFO above ground. This could lead to massive conflict between the daylight and the darkness below. It should not be, however, a massive PvE space. It should be PFO underground.
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CEO, Goblinworks
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Here is the logic behind the option of the Islands approach.
The game will be weighted towards the accumulation of power over time. Therefore we can reasonably expect that the older an area is the more powerful the characters that live in it will be.
Power will gravitate to stasis. Settlements will either be in a continuous Cold War with a hostile frontier constantly patrolled and defended with little movement, or the area will homogenize into a peaceable Kingdom where the power brokers all agree to get along. In either case there won't be a place for a new group of upstarts to plant a flag and start building their own empires.
So what will happen is that the upstarts will constantly move to the frontier. And as that happens the core will become more and more boring. Life in the core will be pretty much about crafting and socializing, not engaging meaningfully with other players. Everyone not a part of the stable core will find it hard to move through the core so travel routes will be around the perimeter rather than through the middle, further reducing the mixing of new and old populations. But it will also mean that interactions around the perimeter are more likely to be A->B->C rather than a matrix where a lot of factions mix it up.
Over the long term the game looks like a donut. And the perimeter might become mighty thin.
So that's a situation we'll have to monitor and try to avoid.
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Goblin Squad Member
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From a purely mechanical perspective a contiguous map is best. I like the idea that there could be some areas in the game that are literal hours from other areas of the game, and I think the River Kingdoms area should constantly be expanding with the player base.
Variety in setting is a staple of the fantasy genre though. I think early on we are going to be happy to have anything to play at all but they should be developing with the idea that there will probably be other areas at some point.
I think people are on to something in that not all these areas need to be settleable though.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Here is the logic behind the option of the Islands approach.
The game will be weighted towards the accumulation of power over time. Therefore we can reasonably expect that the older an area is the more powerful the characters that live in it will be.
Power will gravitate to stasis. Settlements will either be in a continuous Cold War with a hostile frontier constantly patrolled and defended with little movement, or the area will homogenize into a peaceable Kingdom where the power brokers all agree to get along. In either case there won't be a place for a new group of upstarts to plant a flag and start building their own empires.
So what will happen is that the upstarts will constantly move to the frontier. And as that happens the core will become more and more boring. Life in the core will be pretty much about crafting and socializing, not engaging meaningfully with other players. Everyone not a part of the stable core will find it hard to move through the core so travel routes will be around the perimeter rather than through the middle, further reducing the mixing of new and old populations. But it will also mean that interactions around the perimeter are more likely to be A->B->C rather than a matrix where a lot of factions mix it up.
Over the long term the game looks like a donut. And the perimeter might become mighty thin.
So that's a situation we'll have to monitor and try to avoid.
Interesting... I hadn't thought of it that way, but it is a very good point.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Since we're starting in a corner of the RK rather than the middle of it, I don't see how the nature of a 'core' one must skirt around is an issue. Upstarts can move to newer territory and deal with other upstarts doing the same, while the older settlements will tend to have their local rivals that are similarly established. Whether there's contiguous territory or islands won't affect that much, as either all places have similar resources within their local area with similarly-powered neighbours or, if new areas have significantly different access to resources, then old powers will colonize the new areas and squeeze out actual upstarts. It's probably just the nature of things for long-term rivals to settle into the long game of economic rather than armed conflict with occasional flare-ups as the big powers lend their support to different groups on the frontier while also trying not to commit too much and leave themselves too vulnerable. Narrow chokepoints would only make gridlock more likely rather than less.
As to terrain, that could be a feature of purchased modules rather than zones to settle in. I'd like to see more of Golarion, but I'd rather find actual Pathfinder places there than Kewldoodzville.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Power will gravitate to stasis. Settlements will either be in a continuous Cold War with a hostile frontier constantly patrolled and defended with little movement, or the area will homogenize into a peaceable Kingdom where the power brokers all agree to get along. In either case there won't be a place for a new group of upstarts to plant a flag and start building their own empires.
I'm very much looking forward to the PFO equivalent of the sacking of Rome. Attacks directed against the old, decadent and lax empires of the core from upstarts at the perimeter. Not something that will happen every day (or week or month) but when it does happen it will be awesome and could maybe set that region back to an 'up for grabs' state?
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Goblin Squad Member
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While I can see the possibilities of "islands", I prefer contiguous game areas. However, while moving south into Lambreth would have little impact on current Paizo lore (my own opinion only), moving to the southeast will impack Daggermark which does have some fixed points in lore timeline. Granted the Worldwound will most likely be changed by Wrath of the Righteous, I am not sure PFO should have such license. Expanding east farther into the Echo Wood could be done all the way through the Protectorate of the Black Marquis and into Loric Falls (I think) without great lore impact. North into the Felldales area of Numeria is also possible but I would rather not open up "technology" into PFO.
The West Sullen River blocks entry into Ustalav and Razmiran. However, if water travel is made into a game mechanic it might be a feasible place to explore.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Sure, vampires and other horrors, let's go to Transylv... er Ustalav.
At least the vampires are mostly honest about what they are, unlike those Razmiran 'priests'. If you're gonna wear a mask all the time, at least make it of organic matter so you can keep hanging with the homelies.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I was thinking some more on this but delayed putting pen to paper.
If you have islands in the River Kingdoms. You could surround the borders with procedural generated hexes that change every so often (ie simulate the frontier wilderness beyond the wilderness-civilization of the actual map itself.
In time you could connect the spaces between these islands or at least maintain the procedural hexes but allow travel between them (a long trip in random country). The alternative regular routes could be major roads or waterways.
Procedural has useful application for "the wider world". What nudged me to suggest this was looking at procedural generation in creating a whole galaxy or universe particularly for space games. It's a good way of creating a lot of "space"/sense of wider world addition.
So each Hex itself is an Island. But each Map Island could then act like another larger-scale Island among islands.
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Goblin Squad Member
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The problem Ryan mentions above, is the deciding factor I believe. I would be in favour of a contiguous world ideally, but it depends on that doughnut effect of territory control and interaction of players and economy shake-up.
Having porous islands connected variously (procedural generation long-haul travel, road travel or riverway travel might create the right balance of flux vs equilibrium?
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Goblin Squad Member
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Any "gates" between islands will hopefully occur in absolute safe areas such as the "Starter" cities. That would eliminate the "Gate Camping" you find in EVE. This is assuming that the islands are between different areas of the world, not between hex regions of the river kingdoms.
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Goblin Squad Member
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You could just have major roads that connect up that lead to "entry/exit" points and some sort of safe travel off the map when connecting up to the network "autobahn" (full-name: Bundesautobahn (plural Bundesautobahnen, abbreviated BAB), which translates as "federal expressway" ; map of Autobahnen in Deutschland
I think naturally some areas will become hinterland and others will become buzzing trade routes eg Jita as mentioned previously inertia and players calculating a minor difference that adds up hence picking a spot that provides that.
Border areas could have exit/entry points. And inner areas could have connection routes to those. Federal might be a power higher than player kingdoms?
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Goblin Squad Member
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"Gates" between areas ("mainland" and "islands) need not be necessary. Consider Baldur's Gate, there you could leave a zone from any point along its border. If you could also choose where along the border to enter a zone then there would be no bottlenecks and no gate camping.
Ex: you reach the southernmost border of the River Kingdoms playfield and open the "world travel" menu. You are allowed to go to Qadira from here but not The Worldwound (you would have to be at the northernmost end of the River Kingdoms playfield for that). Select the option to travel to Qadira and select where along the northern edge of that playfield you want to enter.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I was thinking some more on this but delayed putting pen to paper.
If you have islands in the River Kingdoms. You could surround the borders with procedural generated hexes that change every so often (ie simulate the frontier wilderness beyond the wilderness-civilization of the actual map itself.
In time you could connect the spaces between these islands or at least maintain the procedural hexes but allow travel between them (a long trip in random country). The alternative regular routes could be major roads or waterways.
Procedural has useful application for "the wider world". What nudged me to suggest this was looking at procedural generation in creating a whole galaxy or universe particularly for space games. It's a good way of creating a lot of "space"/sense of wider world addition.
So each Hex itself is an Island. But each Map Island could then act like another larger-scale Island among islands.
If intervening lands, all of the same type, were procedurally generated they could bear escalations, also procedurally generated. Let the islands be interesting and the ways between them less so, or initially not intentionally interesting. Let the worldbuilders work where the art of the craft is important, and let the machine build the filler between them.
It should take time to get where our characters are going so that they will not go there until it is worth their while. And meanwhile the new arrivals who will wish to build their own place on the frontier, the cutting edge of the donut, as it were, will be able to find their place in untrammeled territory.
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Goblin Squad Member
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NPC Hex: A limited number of hexes are controlled by NPC settlements, such as Thornkeep and Fort Inevitable. In addition, certain major trade routes are also chains of NPC hexes.
- These cannot be controlled by settlements and do not affect their development.
- Resources can be harvested in these hexes, but tend to be lower quality overall.
- These hexes provide some level of protection for players in the form of NPC guards or patrols.
Would this not be the simplest implementation for Gates?
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Goblin Squad Member
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Seems like it would be, but procedurally generated areas linking developed islands would also be simple. The NPC thoroughfares referenced in that quote were within the River kingdoms rather than radiating from the River Kingdoms, weren't they? I imagine there would also be trails, possibly roads but I am unsure whether those would be NPC after the pattern you quoted or not.
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Goblin Squad Member
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The problem Ryan mentions above, is the deciding factor I believe. I would be in favour of a contiguous world ideally, but it depends on that doughnut effect of territory control and interaction of players and economy shake-up.
Having porous islands connected variously (procedural generation long-haul travel, road travel or riverway travel might create the right balance of flux vs equilibrium?
How does having islands prevent entrenched old-timers any better? If anything, what I imagine as islands would be even easier to defend.
I like the idea of concentric levels of civilization and pseudo-safety. And if GW does want to monkey wrench everything, all they have to do is decide "Oh these places are too civilized and the land is overstressed. Resources dry up and everything still coming out of the ground is low quality." It creates a game state GW wants and is very realistic and believable.
Stockpiles will prevent immediate collapse (if they were doing that) but suddenly the whole long term focus of the the major in-game players is far away from the safe centers while their land lies fallow and regenerates. All those old, perceived entrenched states are suddenly at risk with a teeny tiny patch.
A central core will only remain stable so long. The core entities will grow complacent,decadent and flabby.Slowly overtime they will bleed a lot of the PVP strength who move towards the outskirts of the map seeking fame, blood and adventure.These will band together over time and before long a ravening horde will sweep the soft central kingdoms from the face of the River kingdoms
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Goblin Squad Member
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Life in the core will be pretty much about crafting and socializing, not engaging meaningfully with other players. Everyone not a part of the stable core will find it hard to move through the core so travel routes will be around the perimeter rather than through the middle, further reducing the mixing of new and old populations. But it will also mean that interactions around the perimeter are more likely to be A->B->C rather than a matrix where a lot of factions mix it up.
Over the long term the game looks like a donut. And the perimeter might become mighty thin.
So that's a situation we'll have to monitor and try to avoid.
I was ignorantly under the assumption that before OE, we would be given a chance to relocate our settlements to solve this very problem.
Regardless, a simple solution is incentivize instablility of the core through some means.
Another would be to render a core settlement uninhabitable once conquered. This would resolve once there were only 3 or 5 or however many settlements remaining... or not at all.
Everyone will lose eventually. This solves the donut problem.
Also, incentivizing the development and short term holding of the perimeter is also another way to spread the player base out.
I do want to see different parts of Golarion... I just don't want to go through three different gates to do it. I do see this as a possible answer to "what the long game will be" as managing logistics over long distances will likely be VERY difficult.