Goblin Squad Member
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I just read an intrresting atricle about a couple of popular murder simulations available right now on Steam. CLICK HERE to check it out. Throughout the article I kept imagining whether PFO would fall into this same category. I hope that the safeguards it puts in place will be sufficient to keep such behavior rare in the extreme.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I just read an intrresting atricle about a couple of popular murder simulations available right now on Steam. CLICK HERE to check it out. Throughout the article I kept imagining whether PFO would fall into this same category. I hope that the safeguards it puts in place will be sufficient to keep such behavior rare in the extreme.
It is not whether or not there are safe guards in place, it is if there will be game play in place that will provide a more fulfilling alternative.
If PFO provides rewards, both individual and group / settlement, for the successful activities of feud, faction or war based conflicts, than there would be little or no incentive to kill outside of those. Bandits who use SAD, rather than ambush and kill non hostile targets, gain more influence than those who don't.
You gain more influence from sacking a POI owned by a faction target, than you do from a feud target. You gain the most from sacking a POI of a war target, than a feud or faction target.
Use the influence system as a carrot to encourage the behaviors that GW wants, and they won't have as much to worry about Griefers.
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Goblin Squad Member
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If GW wants to tie Influence to in-game choices, I'm not sure they need to prioritize feud vs. faction. Why should GW decide which is better?
If we're getting Influence primarily from company members' achievements, it might be simpler to tie Influence gain to the player character's Reputation: Take a baseline Rep of 0 earning 100% Influence for achievements; having a Rep higher than 0 doesn't have to earn more Achievement than that. But Rep lower than 0 could have a linear drop-off in achievements' Influence gain, where bottom Rep of -7500 earns 0 Influence for achievements.
I'm not sure low Rep should get lower Influence. I am pretty sure that GW doesn't need to be in the business of subsidizing war vs. faction vs. feud. (And why should feuds or faction or war kills gain Influence beyond that normally gained for achievements - unless they want the game to be all PvP, all the time?)
edit to add: ramping down Influence available to low Rep groups would also provide another incentive to not become low Rep: the group would be able to attack without a feud, for example, if they disregard Rep losses, but would have less and less Influence to use feuds until they raised their Rep.
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Goblin Squad Member
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If GW wants to tie Influence to in-game choices, I'm not sure they need to prioritize feud vs. faction. Why should GW decide which is better?
If we're getting Influence primarily from company members' achievements, it might be simpler to tie Influence gain to the player character's Reputation: Take a baseline Rep of 0 earning 100% Influence for achievements; having a Rep higher than 0 doesn't have to earn more Achievement than that. But Rep lower than 0 could have a linear drop-off in achievements' Influence gain, where bottom Rep of -7500 earns 0 Influence for achievements.
I'm not sure low Rep should get lower Influence. I am pretty sure that GW doesn't need to be in the business of subsidizing war vs. faction vs. feud. (And why should feuds or faction or war kills gain Influence beyond that normally gained for achievements - unless they want the game to be all PvP, all the time?)
edit to add: ramping down Influence available to low Rep groups would also provide another incentive to not become low Rep: the group would be able to attack without a feud, for example, if they disregard Rep losses, but would have less and less Influence to use feuds until they raised their Rep.
If low rep earns less and less influence to feud, then they will use feuds less and less. This would remove the incentive for them to feud. Feuding does not only allow the attacker to PvP without negative consequences, but also the defender has the ability to attack preemptively as well.
I believe they want the game to be PvP most of the time, but remember, PvP is not just combat.
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Goblin Squad Member
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If low rep earns less and less influence to feud, then they will use feuds less and less. This would remove the incentive for them to feud. Feuding does not only allow the attacker to PvP without negative consequences, but also the defender has the ability to attack preemptively as well.
I believe they want the game to be PvP most of the time, but remember, PvP is not just combat.
I was speaking of feuds and factional conflict and warfare - I thought you were as well. If PvP is not just combat, then having a new mechanism that benefits war over faction conflict and faction over feud is only dealing with some small fraction of your PvP. By that standard, GW would also need to make decisions as to whether crafting earns more influence than gathering, and whether processing ore earns more influence than a feud. If it's all PvP, your new mechanic probably needs to consider it all.
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CEO, Goblinworks
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I have been following Rust since its inception. It is clearly one of the most interesting games to come down the pike in quite some time. The fact that it has made more than $20 million on Steam is also pretty spectacular.
It shows us a variety of things I personally find very interesting.
First, it proves that "minimum viable product" is a lot more "minimum" than folks previously thought. There's barely anything in Rust (or there was the last time I played it). One character model. A handful of animals. Some landscape. A few sets of clothing and a few types of weapons.
Nobody is going to look at it and say "that there's some cutting edge tech!" Nobody is going to write about Rust's amazing characterization, voice acting, cut scenes, or other storytelling props. And there's certainly nothing revolutionary about its game mechanics.
Second, it proves that people will create meaningful human interaction in the absence of virtually all "regular" game systems. There are really only three things to do in Rust. Kill other players, build structures, and participate in the "economy" (making food, mostly, but a little bit of exploration and discovery of more advanced clothing and weapons). The game doesn't have a tutorial. It doesn't have a new player experience. There is no in-game benefit to doing ANYTHING (your character does not get "better" except by upgrading gear). Yet people have created tribal societies, constructed monuments that required the labor of dozens over hundreds of hours, and made up all sorts of "games".
If you have not played it, I recommend that you give it a whirl. It's a fascinating experience in "minimum".
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Goblin Squad Member
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Rust scared me. Night was falling, and I was hacking away at a large stone, with a smaller stone , when all of a sudden a half naked guy in tight whities stood right next to me, heavily gesturing.
It also bored me to death, tbh. I am just not social enough to make something out of this kind of MVP.
I think I need a *little* more.
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CEO, Goblinworks
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I think that if I had seen Rust before we planned Pathfinder Online we might have risked a much more minimum game than we did. As it is, we're still pretty "minimum" compared to what most people think of when they think of an MMO, but there's a pretty robust game in there already. It's a long way more complex than Rust.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I think that if I had seen Rust before we planned Pathfinder Online we might have risked a much more minimum game than we did. As it is, we're still pretty "minimum" compared to what most people think of when they think of an MMO, but there's a pretty robust game in there already. It's a long way more complex than Rust.
I guess I'm glad you didn't see Rust first. Like Tyncale, I found it not worth the effort. otoh, I played Wurm for several years, and when I tried Rust my first impression was "Oh, gods, no. I'm not going to spend that kind of time again, grinding away for very little gain."
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Goblin Squad Member
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As with all MVP games, it is all about the people you play with. A lot of people only play WoW because of the people, that the game has all that theme park content is just a bonus. Even if Pathfinder is just a glorified chat room with 3D avatars at first, I would happily play it just to talk with all the Golgotha people.
Might not pay a $15 monthly sub for it, had that been the case, though.