Goblin Squad Member
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One thing that I loved about Ultima Online was that many npc cities available for a player to socialize with other players, sell goods or run errands. In Darkfall, a game that focuses on settlements like Pathfinder, places like this didn't exist and the only people you really interacted on a social level were the people of your clan/settlement. I feel like this had a negative impact on the game and community.
What elements will Pathfinder Online include to create a social atmosphere to players of different settlements?
One thing that I loved about Ultima Online was that many npc cities available for a player to socialize with other players, sell goods or run errands. In Darkfall, a game that focuses on settlements like Pathfinder, places like this didn't exist and the only people you really interacted on a social level were the people of your clan/settlement. I feel like this had a negative impact on the game and community.
What elements will Pathfinder Online include to create a social atmosphere to players of different settlements?
There are the npc starter settlements.
In addition various groups such as Pax Aeternum and Brighthaven have declared an intent to be NRDS (not sure about the other pax groups). Aeternum has in addition declared an intent to become a market hub.
There are also the kickstarter taverns and POI taverns in NRDS lands.
One or more of these may well end up being the defacto social hub
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Goblin Squad Member
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I would hope to see a number of events run out of Brighthaven to provide a social reason to show up instead of purely mechanical reasons such as merchantile or training needs. I know Pax wishes to do some Festival type holidays as well with some of their settlements.
If such places do not exist by nature of the NPC cities, we will try to find a way to make them, so long as we can also defend them.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Decius, don't forget the caveat that you have to maintain a minimum reputation score to enter NPC settlements. Even if you misbehave in someone else's territory the NPC's might not have you.
I think there's a plan for a safety valve of sorts in that regard.
So the question I see is how do low rep (below -2500) characters get any training?We think there needs to be some NPC Settlement that will take them. Probably not Thornkeep but someplace else. Access to minimum character support only. All details TBD.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Decius, don't forget the caveat that you have to maintain a minimum reputation score to enter NPC settlements. Even if you misbehave in someone else's territory the NPC's might not have you.
This is truly a lose-lose scenario.
Funneling all low rep into a single NPC city will reduce their ability to form social connections. The formation of social connections is one of the first steps towards reformation when you begin to realize how nice it is to have friends, but that people do not want to hang around some trollish murder-hobo.
On the other hand, allowing low rep into an NPC city with higher reputation novices is like throwing a fox into a chicken coop. That's a lot of temptation for the fox, and even if the fox does behave itself you are still left with a bunch of stressed-out birds.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Funneling all low rep into a single NPC city will reduce their ability to form social connections.
I think this may have been what Ryan was talking about when he said "some of your characters may become unplayable".
If the Player is willing to abandon that Low Rep Character, they stand a very good chance of reintegrating with the Community.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Funneling all low rep into a single NPC city will reduce their ability to form social connections.I think this may have been what Ryan was talking about when he said "some of your characters may become unplayable".
If the Player is willing to abandon that Low Rep Character, they stand a very good chance of reintegrating with the Community.
Part of my point was that you tend to need friends to miss before you realize that you need to reform. In order for social pressure to work, you need to be able to establish some social connections in the first place.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Maybe suitably charismatic/dangerous High-Rep Players will be able to make/assemble high-end training kits and sell them for juicy profits in low-rep Settlements?
Bandit Clans and Player-Killer Characters want the training, but their un-sanctioned PvP and dishonest dealings have made it all but impossible to enter Settlements that offer the training they need without a huge up-front cost to the few Settlements willing to train them, which they will receive back if they don't go on a murder-spree while within that hex.
Along comes the Evil Merchant, high rep, always honors his deals, always obeys the rules ... and in his Evil Wagon, he has an assortment of High-End training kits.
Expensive, but as he points out, anybody so much as looks at him funny, they'd best be the slickest thing since two elf ladies wrestled themselves into a pool of baby oil, because he has the backing of a couple of powerful merchant cartels and an Assassin Guild, which means anybody roughs him up or steals his stock, they end up dodging assassins and high-end bounty hunters.
Or perhaps this is how powerful Settlements work. Find the Bandits and offer them training kits, make them dependant upon you and direct them to your enemies, and when your Hex is settled, they either get the boot when you refuse to sell them more Training Kits and they can't skill-up anymore, or you give them a hefty bribe to go head seven hexes away, any direction they choose.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Maybe suitably charismatic/dangerous High-Rep Players will be able to make/assemble high-end training kits and sell them for juicy profits in low-rep Settlements?
Bandit Clans and Player-Killer Characters want the training, but their un-sanctioned PvP and dishonest dealings have made it all but impossible to enter Settlements that offer the training they need without a huge up-front cost to the few Settlements willing to train them, which they will receive back if they don't go on a murder-spree while within that hex.
Along comes the Evil Merchant, high rep, always honors his deals, always obeys the rules ... and in his Evil Wagon, he has an assortment of High-End training kits.
Expensive, but as he points out, anybody so much as looks at him funny, they'd best be the slickest thing since two elf ladies wrestled themselves into a pool of baby oil, because he has the backing of a couple of powerful merchant cartels and an Assassin Guild, which means anybody roughs him up or steals his stock, they end up dodging assassins and high-end bounty hunters.
Or perhaps this is how powerful Settlements work. Find the Bandits and offer them training kits, make them dependant upon you and direct them to your enemies, and when your Hex is settled, they either get the boot when you refuse to sell them more Training Kits and they can't skill-up anymore, or you give them a hefty bribe to go head seven hexes away, any direction they choose.
Great from a story-angle, but ultimately results in maintaining High-Rep !@#hat-in-disguise settlement that will cater to low-rep and circumvent the entire reputation mechanic.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Great from a story-angle, but ultimately results in maintaining High-Rep !@#hat-in-disguise settlement that will cater to low-rep and circumvent the entire reputation mechanic.
Exactly. Seems like it would make reputation a moot mechanic if you throw in any easy way around it like this (queue naysayers proclaiming it an already moot mechanic).
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Goblin Squad Member
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I think they'll first consider abandoning their character when they realize it's been gimped and they don't want to put in the time to recover. Once they're no longer "being bad", then the community has an opportunity to hook them.
Or they just start over the same cycle as before with their new character because they've never actually been exposed to a catalyst for change. With a flat power curve a couple weeks of training could give a pack of ne'er-do-wells all they need to mess with smaller amounts of most people so an unplayable character is merely an inconvenient pothole on the same obnoxious path.
I'm not promoting a specific system for player reformation at this point, but I think an obvious guiding principle is there's no reason to think negative players will change if they're only exposed to the same stimuli found in every other MMO*.
*- Except LoL that is in the process of doing something quite different and measuring long-term affects.
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Goblin Squad Member
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... because they've never actually been exposed to a catalyst for change.
I think the catalyst for change is the realization that they will be gimped as long as they play that way. They'll never get enough power to actually dominate anyone.
If the player is content with a gimped character, then he doesn't even need to re-roll, so an "unplayable character" really isn't unplayable, and isn't even a pothole. Players who are content to play like that will surely exist, and they'll occasionally rally together and roll through the civilized lands, providing loads of content.
And I really don't think that "repeatedly and powerfully shocking the system" counts as "the same stimuli found in every other MMO". The promise of PFO is not that everyone will learn to play in a positive manner, but that the toxic players will be beaten down enough that the positive players will have some space to breathe and build and [i]play[i].
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Goblin Squad Member
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... because they've never actually been exposed to a catalyst for change.I think the catalyst for change is the realization that they will be gimped as long as they play that way. They'll never get enough power to actually dominate anyone.
If the player is content with a gimped character, then he doesn't even need to re-roll, so an "unplayable character" really isn't unplayable, and isn't even a pothole. Players who are content to play like that will surely exist, and they'll occasionally rally together and roll through the civilized lands, providing loads of content.
And I really don't think that "repeatedly and powerfully shocking the system" counts as "the same stimuli found in every other MMO". The promise of PFO is not that everyone will learn to play in a positive manner, but that the toxic players will be beaten down enough that the positive players will have some space to breathe and build and [i]play[i].
I am banking hopes and dreams that you are right. Not too far so as to discourage competition, but I think that I know what you mean.