Goblin Squad Member
|
I'll need to get back to you on the actual age of their cities. Afghanistan certainly has a far more civilized history than most people think, but the Afghans are also prone to exaggeration, in particular of the age of their wonders. Afghanistan has and had some true wonders from its Buddhist period, but most of its wonders and great cities are the product of its conversion to Islam which happened significantly later in its history.
If you want, I could recommend some archaeological magazines I get that go into detail on those sites?
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Yeah and the Mongols were actually 40% heavy cavalry that would charge in and rout the enemy after the light archers broke their formations. If you stipulate mixed forces then the Mongols still win. :o)
If that were the case then the Middle East and Anatolia would be populated by the descendants of the Mongol forces. The Mamluks, in addition to taking back most of the Middle East from the Crusaders, also defeated the Mongols and stopped their advance in its tracks.
A very good look at how the various types of military forces interacted with one another can be found in Archer Jones' The Art of War in the Western World. It is a very comprehensive look at the subject, and the takeaway is that, historically, no one arm is completely dominant for any length of time and the most effective armies tended to have significant troop levels in several arms.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
I am not sure if travel in the River Kingdoms will *ever* be boring.
The River Kingdoms are too dangerous for that.
Yea, but that can also be very annoying. You're just trying to get from point A to point B and have to fight through everything between. Sometimes it is better to just mount up and bypass stuff you don't want to deal with.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
Imagine the poor parent who has less than 30 minutes to play before leaving for her daughter's soccer game. Imagine further her character needing to go from the north end of the map to the south for some purpose; I can believe she might not be able to "accomplish" anything with that day's play, perhaps even including reaching her final destination.
PFO may never be one of those games lauded as "you can get something done even if you don't have a lot of time to play". Anyone's mileage may vary, of course.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
There will be fast travel, you will find it in this blog: Fast Travel
No need to run across the entire map. Not sure how long it would take to cover a serious distance though. And it also depends on how often you get pulled out of Fast Travel because of an ambush.
Goblinworks Executive Founder
|
Except the game mechanics won't support a six ounce bird carrying a one pound coconut. Am I right?Should coconuts be threadable/lootable?Threadable only if they were carried to the River Kingdoms by a swallow before the character acquired them.
Since creatures don't generally drop usable equipment, once it picks it up it MUST keep carrying it.
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
Imagine the poor parent who has less than 30 minutes to play before leaving for her daughter's soccer game. Imagine further her character needing to go from the north end of the map to the south for some purpose; I can believe she might not be able to "accomplish" anything with that day's play, perhaps even including reaching her final destination.
This is something I was alluding to in my 'Difficulty vs. Accessibility' post.
I respect that all players are different and I don't want to see PfO be a 'quit your job, your spouse leaves you, your children no longer recognize you' type of game, but I have a serious peeve with the tendency of MMOs these days to cater to the 'lowest common denominator'. I don't like the idea of players being able to teleport all over the map on a whim. This diminishes casters and magical items. From what I've read on the blog and forum, even Fast Travel isn't designed to be 100% safe.
I would hope that PfO would be more like a typical Table Top session: It's dangerous to leave town, it's dangerous to enter that dungeon, and it's even more dangerous to get back to town with all of that shiny treasure.
To use your example, the player in question can try to cover as much ground as they can in 30 minutes. If they can make it safely, they can log out and continue their journey the next time they log in.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
Or they can do some other activity that doesn't require a trip across the game world. One would think that a busy soccer mom would set up her play experience accordingly; that is, she would make sure she isn't depended on to do things she can't do, and focusing her character's efforts on things that can be advanced with less time if she only has less time do do her activities.
I.E. don't plan on being in a leadership position, or a high end military unit, or something else with a lot of responsibility. If you lead the kind of life where you have to duck out frequently than don't play such roles.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
It may seem rude or pathetic to some, but I agree with Pax Shane.
If you don't have the time or ability to do those high-end responsibility positions, don't do them. This is a two way street, you won't be committing enough to your real life and the end game will always be lacking.
As a general rule, just do what you can and do it to the best you can and you shall receive an enjoyable, fulfilling play experience.
There will not be mounts in Early Enrollment and its unclear at what point after Open Enrollment begins that they will enter the game.
But when they do...MAMMOTHS
Right?*snicker* and my Halfling has a petite pony with long wavy mane and tail and a suspiciously trademarked picture on it's left flank....
I say no to pegasi and unicorns. Earth ponies normal horses are master race!
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I've said it before and/or elsewhere, but I'd much prefere the representation of Mounts to be such as the use of cars and horses as used historically and in modern times:
1) Mainly used to make long journeys
2) Ideally in historic times mounts were expensive and had their own economy as part of transport logistics before the motor car.
3) Not be as per most mmorpgs - galivanting joy-rides. For example in some games where movement costs fuel and you could run out of fuel it would leave you stranded, I think that makes the player choices on where to move to much more considered and constrained and by-product of satisfaction with moving (imo).
This is all describing transport mounts. Later there could be other varieties such as hauling, Cavalry etc.
Incidentally, I love the idea of being able to purchase transport mount reskins. You could have Fort AwesomeMcBadass carting all its goods on the backs of wild boars! ;D
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
I think that's basically this subforum's motto.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Now, eventually, when the 'Farm/Ranch' PoI or Building makes it into the game, here's a couple of thinks I would love to see make it into the mix.
Skills/Badges for 'crafting' animals. And no, I don't mean Doctor Moraue or however it's spelled, I mean breeding specific types of animals.
Player could specialise in 'fast breeding', resulting in faster 'generation' of livestock/mounts.
Player could specialise in 'multiple breeding', resulting in slightly higher 'spawns' of livestock/mounts.
Player could specialise in 'quality breeding', resulting in a slightly slower 'generation' of livestock/mounts with high stats/better quality resources harvested from them.
Players who dedicate themselves to breeding might even call upon adventurers for specific creatures from the wild to interbreed into their stock to create desired traits, or to recover specific plants or even magical essences to feed to their stock to create specific, short-lived effects when breeding the animals together to create something new.
High End 'Breeder'-focused Players might be able to produce Half-Dragon Mounts, or even Cattle, which could serve as powerful mounts for front-line combatants, or in the case of the cattle, a relatively cheap source of 'Dragon Hide' that doesn't involve waiting for a Dragon Escalation to happen.
Of course, that could also open the door to a Cowpocalypse as the Scaly Bovines, with their enhanced intellects, decide to rain fire and misery on their two-legged oppressors.