Goblin Squad Member
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Sitting in a chair and writing notes in a book or scroll seem so .... unimaginative.
I can't say that in close to 30 years of playing roleplaying games I've ever thought "the best part of that session was when I sat in a chair".
If you came to me in 1990 and said "imagine you're playing a shared world game with thousands of other people in a detailed 3D virtual fantasy world - tell me what you would want to be able to do in that world that would be meaningful to you as a way of developing your character" I can guarantee you "sit in a chair" was not going to be on the list.
Crafting, now that's unimaginative. Gathering virtual wood. Not very imaginative.
Two characters engaging in free form ad lib roleplay as they SIT in a tavern...lot's of imaginative.
Role play is far and away the most imaginative element of on line play. As a matter of fact, we need a few basic features specifically so we don't have to stretch our imaginations too far.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Sitting in a chair and writing notes in a book or scroll seem so .... unimaginative.
Yet here we all sit, in our chairs, writing notes on a forum.
I can't say that in close to 30 years of playing roleplaying games I've ever thought "the best part of that session was when I sat in a chair".
Have you ever said, "the best part of that session was when I got to mine some copper"?
Different things appeal to different people. Some people want to see their sword swinging and hitting an opponent. Some people want to see their characters mining copper, and some want to sit in an inn on a chair.
If you came to me in 1990 and said "imagine you're playing a shared world game with thousands of other people in a detailed 3D virtual fantasy world - tell me what you would want to be able to do in that world that would be meaningful to you as a way of developing your character" I can guarantee you "sit in a chair" was not going to be on the list.
Taking the 3D aspect out of it, just about every single MUD/MUSH in the 90's had a sit emote. It seems as games have progressed to 3D, they have begun to lose their roleplaying perspective in favour of a more action oriented format.
All some people are asking for are basic emotes (or the ability to textualize emotes) and some basic props. Is this a coding issue, a time issue or just something that is seen as not needed?
All some people are asking for are basic emotes (or the ability to textualize emotes) and some basic props. Is this a coding issue, a time issue or just something that is seen as not needed?
I think it's more of a "we don't have money to blow on pointless s&*%" issue. If you're into that ESO had a $300 million budget and blew half of it on writers to drop books everywhere, voice activation, emotes, chairs to sit in... it's basically a RP'ers dream (but a s$&$ty game in general). I'm sure if you have an extra $200 million lying around, Ryan would be happy to give you all of those things.
Make a purely pvp game. Smashing people's faces in, in pvp is easy. Sometimes smashing the same guy's face in repeatedly each day gets tiresome. Killing "The Goblin King" for the fifth time that day is tedious. This is why not every action I enact in game is in character as it stretches my bounds of realism and realism within the bounds of the setting is what I enjoy. It's also why I enjoy RP. I can achieve things in game. I haven't met a game where achieving was difficult. RP maintains my presence in games when I'm done kicking ass and taking names for the day. Sure some actions can be seen as RP but how many goblin kings can there be?
The game that gets gameplay elements (most important), PVP, PVE and RP all right is going to be one hell of a game.
Some CC has feuded mine. We fight them back. My character sneaks into their settlement and writes them a note and leaves it inside their leader's home, "Better luck next time." Kicks much hind end in my opinion. It's the small things that matter most. Attention to detail.
...also, Beat Army!
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CEO, Goblinworks
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Different things appeal to different people. Some people want to see their sword swinging and hitting an opponent. Some people want to see their characters mining copper, and some want to sit in an inn on a chair.
I think there's a serious issue of people's imagination being beggared by a long period of theme park gaming, where player agency was minimized and character development was railroaded. If you can't really change the world, if you're not really any different than ten thousand other near-clones, I can see why you might pursue Roleplaying on the margins.
But if we give you back what you should have had in the first place, the ability to play a role that would seem to be a far more meaningful and fulfilling experience.
All some people are asking for are basic emotes (or the ability to textualize emotes) and some basic props. Is this a coding issue, a time issue or just something that is seen as not needed?
It is a coding issue in that everything is a tradeoff and we're in a zero sum environment for features. Doing A implies we cannot do B. That is one of the goals of Crowdfunding, to make those either/or choices reflect the desires of the largest segments of the community.
To put it in context, the ability to sit in a chair implies the following:
An animation to sit and rise. For every character model.
Some collision detection to ensure that the chair you want to sit in is accessible.
Some logic to handle getting your character from whatever orientation and location it begins in to the proper orientation and location to begin the sitting animation.
Dealing with people who try to use an occupied chair.
Dealing with multiple people who try to sit in the same chair at the same time.
Can I sit in every chair, or are some chairs restricted to certain characters or kinds of characters, or times of the day etc.
Dealing with gear: where does the bow go? The quiver? The sheath? How does a cloak look for a seated character?
What happens when a gnome tries to sit in a chair designed for a half-orc, or vice-versa?
What can you do whilst seated? Where does the camera go? How do you move it while seated? Can you zoom the camera in and out? What if you're attacked? What if you want to make an attack? Can you wave, bow, blow kisses, etc. while seated? Order drinks? Drink? Write in a book or on a map? All that requires animation for all character models.
What happens when you log out when you're seated?
Can you look at other characters? Does your head track them as they move? How do you choose who to look at? Within what arc?
How many people want to sit in a given space at max capacity? Can the logic of the architecture support that many chairs?
It just isn't "sit in a chair" and a line of text that says "you're seated".
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Goblin Squad Member
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Quallz,
So you see yourself as safeguarding GW's development budget from all these frivolous role-players who will squander money rightfully allocated for more critical game features? Given Ryan's last two posts in this thread, I doubt you have much to worry about.
As for our suggestions, I don't see anyone asking for these in EE, or even OE. Neither has anyone advocated that one of the mentioned RP features should take precedent over the development of any MVP features. By comparison, this thread has generated far fewer "pie in the sky" wishlists (let alone demands) than most other threads focused on a particular aspect of the game.
What I do believe is that we all would do well to keep our expectations realistically low for any aspect of the game. Actually, role-players are quite adept at making more from less, so I'm sure we'll get along swimmingly well while we wait for our day. However, in a game at least loosely based on a RPG TT game, that some day down the road, once the game has legs, providing a little love for role-players doesn't seem to be asking for much. If the game really takes off with role-players, I suspect they (more than many player groups) would likely be willing to pay for a handful of beloved features. In fact, put these in the cash shop and watch how much role-players put their money where their mouths are.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Ryan - I had a big reply prepared but it was lost in attempt to post, so an abbreviated version.
As to roleplaying on the margins. Many of us do not roleplay on the margins, we roleplay as the main event and play the rest of the game on the margins. This is not about the quality of the game, it is about why we are playing MMORPGs and Pathfinder Tabletop, to be social and to develop characters, and not just stats. For PFO you have a superior world setting and a solid 'rest of the game' for us to partake in and feel meaningful in. However, if the roleplay environment is dead, you are going to lose us as we flee back to the themeparks that at least think to provide basics for us.
As for emotes and animations, most roleplay actions won't require animations but would be cool to have. That means sometime down the road after OE is fine. Things like waving, blowing kisses and bowing as you mentioned. States that tend to persist until they are stopped such as sitting or kneeling would be OE launch desirables for me. Or at least when we get taverns going, whichever is later. If you look at your competition I think you will find that sitting (on ground, not always in chair), kneeling, and laying down/sleeping tend to be the industry standards.
For chairs, again, I'd check out the competition. Sadly, I am not sure that anyone has done chairs all that well since the Ultima Online days, but that means the bar is pretty low for coming up with something acceptable.
Writing I see no issue being post-OE and down the road a ways, but others may disagree with me there. And it probably doesn't need an animation.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Ryan,
I have no problem at all with being told that something I wish to be able to do is too difficult, costly, time consuming, etc. As a potential customer, I appreciate that the CEO is being honest about realistic expectations for the game he represents. What I find odd is that, as CEO, you are directly or indirectly telling posters that things they've said they would find desirable in a game are "unimaginative". Likewise, to allude that any of these posters were claiming that writing in a book or sitting in a chair would be the best part of their gaming session is stretching what they have said in an attempt to make your point. Yes, you were reflecting on your own gaming experience, but the implication seems rather easily read. If that was not your intention, I apologize for the false assumption.
That you will be providing us more engaging roles to play is greatly appreciated. However, I do not see how providing us with these would diminish our desire for the abilities we have listed here since none of them are tied to specific roles. That nearly makes it sound as if our desire for these things is somehow rooted in a less than satisfying role-play experience, and that if we are but provided more meaningful roles, we will toss aside these unimaginative practices. Actually, in that the proposed system for skill acquisition promises to remove the grind that monopolized our playtime in other games, we will find ourselves with even more time to sit in chairs and write books. :)
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Goblin Squad Member
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Actually, in that the proposed system for skill acquisition promises to remove the grind that monopolized our playtime in other games, we will find ourselves with even more time to sit in chairs and write books. :)
And talk business, and forge friendships with strangers over ale, and arrange backroom mercantile dealings and form brand new political affiliations that may never arise if we hadn't been just sitting in our chairs and chatting.
Less grind so that I had more time to sit around being social was a huge selling point.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I think a solid way to take these analogies is actually straight from the tabletop games.
You do not need
1) Fancy character sheets
2) Miniatures
3) Maps
4) Pre-written adventures
All you need are the rules, some dice, and some paper and pencils. Nobody ever says "Man, the best thing about that session was having a well-formatted character sheet" - but it sure helps support everything else going on a lot!
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CEO, Goblinworks
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This is not about the quality of the game, it is about why we are playing MMORPGs and Pathfinder Tabletop, to be social and to develop characters, and not just stats.
Yes, this is my point exactly. Roleplaying features should focus on supporting those goals. I feel like a bunch of stuff has gotten tagged as "Roleplaying" because the games offered fundamentally don't let you be social or develop your characters, but it doesn't do much for Roleplaying.
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CEO, Goblinworks
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What I find odd is that, as CEO, you are directly or indirectly telling posters that things they've said they would find desirable in a game are "unimaginative". Likewise, to allude that any of these posters were claiming that writing in a book or sitting in a chair would be the best part of their gaming session is stretching what they have said in an attempt to make your point.
I'm challenging your most fundamental assumption - that the things you are asking for are features of incredibly marginal utility, that you think you want because they're the only kinds of things possible in the impoverished worlds you've been forced to play in for a decade.
That nearly makes it sound as if our desire for these things is somehow rooted in a less than satisfying role-play experience, and that if we are but provided more meaningful roles, we will toss aside these unimaginative practices.
I'm challenging you to think bigger, more creatively. You're facing the same challenge the PvE people face when challenged to think beyond "kill 10 rats". I'm saying you have access to a way better toolkit so don't settle for the kind of stuff you have been forced to settle for in the past.
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Goblin Squad Member
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This is not about the quality of the game, it is about why we are playing MMORPGs and Pathfinder Tabletop, to be social and to develop characters, and not just stats.Yes, this is my point exactly. Roleplaying features should focus on supporting those goals. I feel like a bunch of stuff has gotten tagged as "Roleplaying" because the games offered fundamentally don't let you be social or develop your characters, but it doesn't do much for Roleplaying.
I think interacting with one's environment is the basis for roleplay. We cannot control anything besides ourselves and what we influence. As far as roleplaying goes, I think controlling a chair is a good start.
Just my two copper.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Just think of where you wish players to recharge. That environment is where you should invest your "roleplay" expenditure of resources. Unless I'm mistaken, that's the tavern.
Being able to interact with chairs and casks and mugs should be the basis of your roleplay investment. If not, what else were you envisioning?
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Goblin Squad Member
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I'm challenging you to think bigger, more creatively. You're facing the same challenge the PvE people face when challenged to think beyond "kill 10 rats". I'm saying you have access to a way better toolkit so don't settle for the kind of stuff you have been forced to settle for in the past.
In the past we've settled for chairs that we have to sit atop of, mugs we cannot even see. We are only asking for a chair that we can sit IN. A mug we can grab and swing. That's not reaching, that's natural evolution. At least to me it is.
If we are going in the wrong direction, the show us the True North, so we can adjust our expectations and/or desires.
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CEO, Goblinworks
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If we are going in the wrong direction, the show us the True North, so we can adjust our expectations and/or desires.
I feel like you're cooks, given an amazing opportunity to make a fantastic kitchen, to order amazing ingredients, and to cook amazing food, and you're focusing on the color of the floor tile.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Bluddwolf no, not like you're thinking, at least not for us. Our models are all custom built and rigged with custom skeletons. Every animation has to be hand-crafted and built from scratch.
I was not aware of that, but that does make it a bit more understandable your dilemma.
But I'm sure you understand, there are certain minimums of emotes and environmental interactivity that the player base in an MMO are going to eventually expect. This is especially true with avatar based MMOs.
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Goblin Squad Member
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If we are going in the wrong direction, the show us the True North, so we can adjust our expectations and/or desires.I feel like you're cooks, given an amazing opportunity to make a fantastic kitchen, to order amazing ingredients, and to cook amazing food, and you're focusing on the color of the floor tile.
But the dining room doesn't have chairs to sit in, so everyone has to stand in the kitchen to eat.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I'm challenging your most fundamental assumption - that the things you are asking for are features of incredibly marginal utility, that you think you want because they're the only kinds of things possible in the impoverished worlds you've been forced to play in for a decade.
On one hand, we are reminded of MVP and you take nearly a page to list reasons why usable chairs are difficult and costly to code into the game. Yet here, you seem to be alluding to features and roles that will challenge our assumptions about role-play in an MMO and make our last decade of MMO experience seem impoverished by comparison. Would you care to describe what marvelous wonders you have behind the curtain that will be so dazzling as to break us of our obsession with chairs?
I'm challenging you to think bigger, more creatively. You're facing the same challenge the PvE people face when challenged to think beyond "kill 10 rats". I'm saying you have access to a way better toolkit so don't settle for the kind of stuff you have been forced to settle for in the past.
Again, for the sake of role-play, what toolkit are you speaking of? Though some of your lengthier posts have provided much appreciated details, there are times you can be rather cryptic (or perhaps purposely vague). These allusions to an environment that will challenge us to think bigger and more creatively are a bit thin on specifics. If you mean that you believe the game itself will be that role-play friendly or engaging, snappy. If not...I want my chair. :)
Goblinworks Executive Founder
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But the dining room doesn't have chairs to sit in, so everyone has to stand in the kitchen to eat.If we are going in the wrong direction, the show us the True North, so we can adjust our expectations and/or desires.I feel like you're cooks, given an amazing opportunity to make a fantastic kitchen, to order amazing ingredients, and to cook amazing food, and you're focusing on the color of the floor tile.
But in the neighbor's house, you can sit at every table, but the only thing served is gruel.
Backing up a bit: In EQ, if you didn't want to play a character who took one of the very limited quest paths available, which typically involved going to a third party website to research which hour-long spawn you had to camp in order to get the item required to perform a marginal upgrade on a piece of armor, then pretty much your only outlet for roleplaying was 'sit on chairs in the tavern and drink'. Roleplaying in EQ would be a little better if you could sit IN the chairs, but it would be a whole lot better if you could join the city guard and do emergent things, rather than just bring them ten rat whiskers.
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Goblin Squad Member
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If we are going in the wrong direction, the show us the True North, so we can adjust our expectations and/or desires.I feel like you're cooks, given an amazing opportunity to make a fantastic kitchen, to order amazing ingredients, and to cook amazing food, and you're focusing on the color of the floor tile.
That may be part of the problem. I feel like we are trying to design an entire restaurant, in which the vast majority of persons will be moving in and around the dining area. While the menu and kitchen is designed by the cooks, the general path of the menu should be molded around what gets ordered most often. The dining room will be more full if the whole dining experience is pleasant. That includes the aesthetics of the music, the floors, the wall decorations and the food.
Oh, and of course great service. A good mix of everything please.
Why not shelve it for now and offer some of it for consideration in crowdforging, where we can actually see what the trade offs would be?
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Goblin Squad Member
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@ Hobs,
You're eating a gourmet meal, you don't need a chair. Appreciate the food, and imagine you have a chair.
Much like a restaurant that tried to run on that business model, I think its a tough sell. Imagine a restaurant that has the best food, you love it, but there is no take out / delivery and no seats. How often are you going to eat there?
I'm tempted to make a new holiday associated with chairs. It will of course have to be violent, because not being able to sit makes me angry and sad. ;{
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CEO, Goblinworks
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On one hand, we are reminded of MVP and you take nearly a page to list reasons why usable chairs are difficult and costly to code into the game. Yet here, you seem to be alluding to features and roles that will challenge our assumptions about role-play in an MMO and make our last decade of MMO experience seem impoverished by comparison. Would you care to describe what marvelous wonders you have behind the curtain that will be so dazzling as to break us of our obsession with chairs?
I'm suggesting that's your question to answer. Given that it's hard to do anything, and everything leads to either/or tradeoffs, I'm suggesting you should rethink what you ask for and not settle for marginal utility.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I must admit that when I read numbers like those below, I can see the need to be conservative if the goal of your initial offering is on a smaller scale and budget.
•5,500,000 – Lines of code
•1,500,000 – Art assets
•33,681 – Production tasks
•70,167 – Spells
•37,537 – NPCs (non-player characters)
•27 – Hours of music
•2600 – Quests in the original World of Warcraft
•2700+ - Additional quests in WoW: The Burning Crusade
•2350+ - Additional quests in WoW: Wrath of the Lich King
•7650+ - Quests total (how many have you finished?)
•4,449,680,399 – Achievements earned by players since their implementation (this figure is already a few days old, and therefore outdated)
Patches:
•4.7– Petabytes (4700 terabytes) of data delivered to players through patches
•126 – Different versions issued of every patch, including those streamed to players and issued as self-extracting executables
•Half – Of every patch’s size is audio
Servers:
•13,250 – Server blades running WoW servers, with a total of
•75,000 – CPU cores, and
•112.5 – Terabytes of RAM
Support:
•179,184 – Bugs tracked by Blizzard (most of which have been fixed, according to the presenters)
•2,056 – Game masters
•340 – Employees in the billing department
•2,584 – Total customer service employees
International:
•10 – Languages into which WoW is translated
Blizzard Online:
•12,000,000+ – Battle.net accounts
•900,000+ - Files on WorldofWarcraft.com
Source: World of Warcraft by the Numbers by The Game Reviews
It makes a little more sense that you would like us to find and explore the RP opportunities offered in what you plan to do within your means.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I'm suggesting that's your question to answer. Given that it's hard to do anything, and everything leads to either/or tradeoffs, I'm suggesting you should rethink what you ask for and not settle for marginal utility.
Ryan,
The problem with leaving it up to us to answer, "...what marvelous wonders you have behind the curtain that will be so dazzling as to break us of our obsession with chairs," is that we don't make the game. If it is a "given that it's hard to do anything, and everything leads to either/or tradeoffs," then it sounds like you're saying GW will be limited in its ability to provide anything we're asking for outside the realm of what you already have planned. I could live with that. I'm used to making my own fun in games, regardless of assistance from the game itself. But then, you finish with "suggesting that [we] should rethink what [we] ask for and not settle for marginal utility," as if you're prepared to offer us more than what we are currently asking for if we just hit upon the right things for which to ask.So are you asking us to think bigger since we might only get one choice, or are you shuffling the shells and asking us to pick the right one hiding the features that you already have in mind, or are you really just saying that we should be happy "imagining" with what you're already coding in the game (which in your mind is better than our marginal utilities)?
For someone asking pretty direct questions, I can't help but restate that the answers seem rather cryptic or purposely vague. At this point, I'd even be fine with, "We aren't planning for anything that the posters in this thread are asking for." Honest. As a gamer, I'm somewhat of a minimalist - I'm able to create my own fun with very few bells and whistles. But as a teacher, I'm used to the conveyance of information being a rather straightforward exchange - not a mystery.
Bringslite,
I take so long to post, that you posted before I was finished, so I'm editing this to include your point. It sounds like your conclusion is the same as my saying that we should be happy "imagining" with what they're already coding in the game (which in Ryan's mind is better than our marginal utilities). If that's what Ryan is saying, I'm fine with that. I'm just looking for a straight answer.
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CEO, Goblinworks
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I'm saying that features will be Crowdforged. How are you going to sway the community to support something as marginal as "sitting in chairs" or "writing in books" vs people asking for necromantic armies, user extensible UI, adventures in the darklands, hatching dragon eggs, kenku characters, battle standards with customizable icons, or eidolons?
You need to advocate for something that is going to capture the imagination of your peers, while at the same time remaining within the bounds of what can be realistically implemented.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Let me again fail to take this a different place.
The issue is RP, but it is RP that we are use to with a human DM (GM). MMO is a set of algorithms not a human.
My (maybe not others, but I can only speak to what I know) best RP involves out to the box approaches to situations, in character but grey in rules/scenario).
1) If it involves manipulation of NPC by strong social play and skills and new approaches, the GM can rule. (How will social skill manipulate players. I know what sword does, but what does diplomacy 15 do?)
2) I do not see how a MMO can handle out of the box solutions, but I suggest a concept. There is a special consideration offered for out of box choices. This can only be requested once per week (0r month, …)). It is reasonable that there be a queue and FIFO. No new requests until one in queue has been resolved. This can only be granted once per (… year? decade). Kickstarteres get one (only 1) free request. Others can buy ($$$$$$$$). Initial decision/support.
If request is turned down, does the option disappear (makes requests really, really important) or second choice (because some reasonable sounding requests are not feasible).
OK, this is intensive Dev support, but the triage is not at dev level (though they can see requests -- not required, but they may have an answer).
Requests must stipulate how this fits into character concept and past charter actions.
Should this have been a separate thread as I treat different concept of what RP is form my characters.
Lam
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Goblin Squad Member
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Well here's for hoping the world is engaging enough and is able to immerse the players and characters within it to the point that things like not being able to sit down in a tavern and other mentioned examples are a non-issue. I'm willing to wait and see on that, though I do find it strange that a game that is being widely advertised as focused on player interactions is almost seemingly frowning on a group of players who cherish those very interactions and seek them out often and willingly. That said, I may very easily be misreading the intent and tone of Ryan's posts...as it's late here and I'm staying up for shift-work so definitely not functioning at 100% capacity.
He's not saying that meaningful interaction isn't important...
He's simply pointing out that /wave and /sit aren't meaningful improvements to it (that are worth spending resources on).
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Goblin Squad Member
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I think the Devs should set-aside a few days each month to play the game alongside the players as NPC's. From a solitary quirky Goblin randomly bumped into by one party of players, to a whole army of Hell Knights run from Mission HQ in GW's Offices. As well as any actual PC's they may have in-game (incognito) out of working hours (!!).
That would be good for RP in all sorts of imaginative scenarios and contexts and surprises.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Here is a suggested trade off:
Give us:
Minimal emotes, environment interactivity and social clothing
Do bother with:
Shifting Alignment System or any Alignment System at all.
At character creation we could just say I'm CN and leave it at that. It is up to me to either act CN or not. It is up to others to guess or imagine what my alignment is, based on how I acted with them.
Alignment has marginal utility which is why it is virtually unseen in any other RPG franchise, and it is unheard of in 90+% of the MMOs.
I bet if you would put it to a poll question, basic RP functionality would win against an alignment system in a landslide.
It is far easier to imagine an alignment, than it is for me to imagine I'm sitting in a chair when I'm not.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I'm saying that features will be Crowdforged. How are you going to sway the community to support something as marginal as "sitting in chairs" or "writing in books" vs people asking for necromantic armies, user extensible UI, adventures in the darklands, hatching dragon eggs, kenku characters, battle standards with customizable icons, or eidolons?
You need to advocate for something that is going to capture the imagination of your peers, while at the same time remaining within the bounds of what can be realistically implemented.
That such features as sitting in a chair and writing in books are possible features to be crowdforged is actually more than I had thought possible. If it comes to a vote some far day down the road, it means it had a chance to be included and the majority vote should win the argument.
That sir, is all the answer I was looking for. Thank you for your reply.
*tips his green hat at the green CEO*
Hobs.
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Goblin Squad Member
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If I was crowdforging: I'd crowdforge for GW to be GM (it looks like the "W" flips to a "M") for a few hours or more a month and do as I suggest above randomly or by design every so often. Then eventually recruit some of the most ardent alpha-testers who have "monster cast" / pass all the security clearance issues to help with this.
As I said above or elsewhere you can only get people to play roles by their own predeliction (usually greed in RL tbh and yes I am cynical on that front) or by some super choreography; which the GW devs have the power to do and develop and devolve-delegate eventually.
I'd pay extra "$dollars$" for such a service (Hobs that was the magic word Ryan was asking you for!! Rofl.).
=
@Bludd. Alignment/Reputation are integral to PFO design, they're off the table, I believe? I know there is big-big risk in them (GW's problem) but that is fundamentally revolutionary if it can be implimented successfully I believe (it might please no-one: Too restrictive for the sandbox-player-driven-only-players vs Too open-world-pvp for the RPG'ers. Word Count: 160 for Alignment on the blog already for Alignment. that word count would drop to a measly 16 if it was just fluff, I suspect?
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Goblin Squad Member
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Sitting in a chair and writing notes in a book or scroll seem so .... unimaginative.
That depends wholly on how imaginative the writer is. Writers can be quite imaginative. Discovering what was imaginatively written by another can also inspire imaginative RP.
The imaginatively written word is a seed of creativity for a future state the author cannot fully foresee. A note is far more likely than the sneeze of a butterfly to trigger greater consequences than anyone would expect.
If I were to find a treasure map unexpectedly, what an adventure might be had trying to figure it out and seek. What puzzles might be posed, and the only investment on the part of the developer is making what cannot be predicted possible.
But those without imagination will not recognize imaginative potentials, it is true.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Sitting in a chair and writing notes in a book or scroll seem so .... unimaginative.
I can't say that in close to 30 years of playing roleplaying games I've ever thought "the best part of that session was when I sat in a chair".
If you came to me in 1990 and said "imagine you're playing a shared world game with thousands of other people in a detailed 3D virtual fantasy world - tell me what you would want to be able to do in that world that would be meaningful to you as a way of developing your character" I can guarantee you "sit in a chair" was not going to be on the list.
How about sitting on the ground, floor etc. Lying, sitting and standing are pretty fundamental postures for a humanoid. How can we even begin thinking about roleplaying in a detailed 3d virtual fantasy world without those? :P
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Bludd. Alignment/Reputation are integral to PFO design, they're off the table, I believe?
The only integral item of PFO's design is that it makes money. That is the bottom line. It is integral for the game to be a success. It is integral for the Devs to keep their job. It is integral for GW to maintain their use of the license for Pathfinder. It is integral for Ryan Dancey to keep his position as CEO.
The question of this thread is, what support for the RP community will there be as it relates to minimal game mechanics?
What Ryan has suggested is that there will be no emotes or interaction with objects in the environment planned for EE or the foreseeable future after EE.
PFO is a Settlement vs. Settlement War Simulator, set in the River Kingdoms.
If that is true, then it makes perfect sense that Ryan views crafters as second class citizens, because their efforts are only relevant in supporting the war effort. Role Playing is completely unnecessary in a war simulator. The motives for war don't require imagination, just to hold what you have and to take what others have.
By his very definitions and explanations of what is needed and what does not demand the development time, I don't seed the point in entertaining the idea of Factions. Factions are just an excuse to make PVP consequence free of alignment / reputation system.
In a War Simulator, there are no consequences for war other than losing.
Leave PFO devoid of basic RP elements, and all you get is PVP for the sake of PVP.
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Goblin Squad Member
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A personal in-game notebook(for everyone) and maybe a simple pop-up window tool for party leaders with option for text and few buttons, which clicks would register back to leader from members and be stored in the notebook. Similar to a "are you ready?" tool, but with a more advanced features. This would allow characters to store information on their character like a memory, or keep track of their characters advancement etc.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I wish I understood better the value proposition of things like books you can write in or chairs you can sit in from a "roleplaying perspective".
I think that perhaps my definition of "roleplaying" is not in the same venn diagram as those other things.
Does it help to think of it as "Performance Art" RP?