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I was reading some opinions here and in Ideascale and seems people want to insert all EVE features in PFO. Any idea that sounds "like EVE" are supported by masses and any idea "not like EVE" are discarded at sigh. All the bias were brought from there to here. It's time to free our minds...
Understanding that a lot of players will come from EVE, but are people really want this game to be a new-EVE in medieval armor? The same question in other words: EVE was really that good that people will narrow their expectations by it, wanting nothing more?
In my case, I imagine the macro politics and wars being like Travian (with less agressive behavior), and micro Character action will be like Skyrim (with "buy with XP Skills"). A more complex craft system, . Not really too much look like, but a similar variation..
Let's leave aside all of the EVE thing and think outside the box: What are others games you based for to brings suggestions and expectations to PFO that could work?
[smaller]PS: In fact I didn't like EVE that much. But this is not an argumentative threat, it is mean to be a constructive one.
Goblin Squad Member
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Do you have specific examples of ideas taken from EVE that are being pushed? I ask because I think it likely that the people who proposed the idea and also most of the people who vote for it don't even know it's a part of EVE. Many people in our (future) player base haven't played EVE.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Do you have specific examples of ideas taken from EVE that are being pushed? I ask because I think it likely that the people who proposed the idea and also most of the people who vote for it don't even know it's a part of EVE. Many people in our (future) player base haven't played EVE.
I'm certainly in that group. I have read some about it, but never loaded it. And, honestly as much or more about the convention as about the game.
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Goblin Squad Member
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The dragons in space game is a separate product, Golarion 514.
Is that like This
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Goblin Squad Member
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The dragons in space game is a separate product, Golarion 514.
Don't joke like that. I would totally go for a compatible game to PFo where the players play celestial and infernal beings that serve the different Godly factions. Then an elite Cleric from PFO can call for HELLFIRE on his enemies.
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Goblin Squad Member
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i get what the OP is saying... An example from this past week of folks asking for eve features... map of doom thread..
Can we have heat maps like eve so we can see tower wars and PvP deaths... folks like the idea and discuss.. The last post says that person doesn’t think its a good idea as it kills a scouts role..
People didn’t want to discuss a scout compared to a heat map and the thread dies..
Just an example from the past week, ..
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Goblin Squad Member
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There are several members of this community doing and saying what needs to be said in order to make PFO a unique and desirable game. I'm not sure I have noticed this EVE upswing that you mentioned.Wait... are you saying I can't fly in space in PFO?
I can see where you'd get that idea.
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Gasp! People want a PvP-centric sandbox game to have features like another PvP-centric sandbox game!
Next you'll be telling me people want a tabletop game to involve dice.
I Googled the term "jump clone".
Jump clones are extra clones you can use to jump from one location to another without having to undertake the whole journey in your ship. You can jump out of your body full of implants into another clone at some remote location, do a bit of PvP and even be pod killed and all the while the implants are safe and sound in the old body and you can simply clone jump to it later on.
Does EVE have a Friend Computer you can praise, by any chance? :P
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Goblin Squad Member
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Someting between this and: "Look at my horse, my horse is amazing!"
@Topic: Here and there always be some EVE correlation, per exemple, I just read about "Jump Clones" being a good and valid idea for PFO... Hahahaha really?
You mock, but having a way to rapidly travel across the world is a good feature to have in a large-world MMO, as long as it has sensible restrictions (oh, say, a 16hr cooldown and you can't take any gear with you? :P).
I'd like to point out that Pathfinder already has an analogue for this - Teleport. The current discussions around that spell already talk about long time between casts, and greatly limiting the amount you can transport with it.
This conversation flows two ways. You can't discard sensible mechanics just because they come from an internet spaceships game.
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Goblin Squad Member
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The dragons in space game is a separate product, Golarion 514.Is that like This
I still think that is a neat design for a starship! Kinda of Gammeraish.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I loved EVEs skill training system. You could queue up a long skill (weeks for some of them) and go on vacation and you were still being "productive" without logging in. then again, logging and seeing an empty queue is a horror!
That's the best bit from EVE. Levels, per se, should go away. Strange when I read the lore book "Pathfinder Chronicles: Guide to the River Kingdoms". Some of the most powerful characters in the River Kingdoms are lower "level" such as Urdul Bazzak, the Black Marquis (level 6 rogue), while one of the highest level leaders is Lord Kamdyn Arnefax (fighter 10) who "snapped a man's neck with bare hands". Keep the skill system, but ditch "levels".
Lore, I think is going to be one of PFOs biggest assets, but it will take a while to get the love woven in, as most of the work now is on mechanics. Sure, some factions will be based in the world of Golarion, but largely mechanical features at the front end (and rightly so, I might add).
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Goblin Squad Member
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The EVE skill system is good. People initially struggle with the lack of classes and levels and the fact you cannot power build to be awesome in 3 weeks but once you get the hang of it it is awesome.
The focus by the devs on "balancing" the game for tournament play and "big space battles" as well as the game encouraging childish schoolboy bully tactics and "harvesting tears" is not really that suited to a fantasy setting. That stuff can be left behind.
Someting between this and: "Look at my horse, my horse is amazing!"
@Topic: Here and there always be some EVE correlation, per exemple, I just read about "Jump Clones" being a good and valid idea for PFO... Hahahaha really?
You mock, but having a way to rapidly travel across the world is a good feature to have in a large-world MMO, as long as it has sensible restrictions (oh, say, a 16hr cooldown and you can't take any gear with you? :P).
I'd like to point out that Pathfinder already has an analogue for this - Teleport. The current discussions around that spell already talk about long time between casts, and greatly limiting the amount you can transport with it.
This conversation flows two ways. You can't discard sensible mechanics just because they come from an internet spaceships game.
Or the clone spell (granted higher-level - but that might be more fitting for the flavor and allow for increased resource usage to balance it and the idea of not being able to transport your gear). It might also open the idea up to more classes - you just need to get a wizard to cast it for you, but you don't have to be one to benefit from it.
Not sure if I like the idea or not (either for this game or in general)...
We've already got Fast Travel, which keeps the hazards of travel while making the travel itself go by rapidly. As far as I'm concerned, that's plenty.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Clone jumping in EVE is used for more than travel.
In EVE there are implants that can never be removed once installed without destroying them that enhance skill acquisition, ship fitting, industry, combat and many other in game features.
Some of these implants (such as the famous Snake set)are worth hundreds of dollars in real money equivalent and are destroyed if you are killed in combat.
Jumping allows you to move to a new body with different implants to suit a particular ship and weapon system, suit a particular job like industry and manufacture or simply to a body with cheap implants if you are going to be involved in combat.
There is a lot more to clone jumping than just fast travel in EVE. AFAIK the implant scenario is not being duplicated in Pathfinder meaning clones are not near as necessary.
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Hey, hey, calm down boys.. I only said about jump clones (that i had to google it too, KC ) because someone asked to point one of he EVE related sugestions...
You mock, but having a way to rapidly travel across the world is a good feature to have in a large-world MMO, as long as it has sensible restrictions (oh, say, a 16hr cooldown and you can't take any gear with you? :P).
I'd like to point out that Pathfinder already has an analogue for this - Teleport. The current discussions around that spell already talk about long time between casts, and greatly limiting the amount you can transport with it.
This conversation flows two ways. You can't discard sensible mechanics just because they come from an internet spaceships game.
As long there were a discussion about teleport with limitations, I agreed with the idea of restrictions for protect caravan system (which I plan to play as a major role in fact).
I understood that EVE is the big sandbox behind us, but guys, there are anothers meta-sandboxes and anothers high fantasy games to be explored. That was I talking about, what others features from others games that could be in use here?
Better than a hearthstone.
Of course: WoW is bad and EVE is good...HAHAHAH
Nah man, we can improve this by: while hearhstone worked for wow, and clone jumps workes in EVE, what will work in PFO? See what I mean?|
Goblin Squad Member
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Well the devs (Mark and Ryan) have solid experience of EVE and EVE itself is the sandbox that derives:-
Sandbox design mmorpg Tree:-
UO -> EVE -> ...
There's other designs eg Second Life has an admirable revenue curve also. So no surprise it's considered a lot by devs and players alike.
Some previous talking points by Ryan:-
2011:
2012:In my perfect world, Pathfinder Online will be to EVE Online what World of Warcraft was to EverQuest. That is, the game that came after the game that solved a lot of hard problems but left a path for development towards accessibility and fun.
As someone who not only played through the transition from EQ to WoW, but spent countless hours doing analysis of both games from a business perspective, I have a tremendous appreciation for what Blizzard accomplished. They did not make a "clone", they made an evolutionary step that changed the way people interacted with theme park MMO content.
I think there's an opportunity to do something similar for sand box MMOs too.
To answer the original question, my goal is to attract people who value the idea of an open world, persistent sandbox where the primary drivers of the experience are other players and their interactions. This is not going to be a game that has a big focus on solo play - although there will certainly be ways to play the game as a Lone Wolf. This is not going to be a game where the objective is to gear up the "perfect" party to solve a theme park puzzle - you'll have specialized characters aplenty, but no "best" option for being an adventurer.
I want to give players a rich set of tools and allow them to creatively use them to create a sword & sorcery world of exploration, development, adventure, and domination. And that's the audience I'm hoping to attract.
1: I would like to see Pathfinder Online evolve the sandbox MMO concepts the way that World of Warcraft evolved the theme park MMO. There are a lot of lessons to be learned from previous sandbox games not just EVE. EVE got a lot of things right and anyone who has played EVE will likely find a lot of similarities with Pathfinder Online, but the two games will be very different as well.
2: Not much at all. Rather than mirroring the mechanics, we're going to mirror the style of the game. The Pathfinder tabletop game is built around small parties of specialized adventurers and extremely detailed tactical combat that is broken into 6 second intervals, but allows an infinite amount of real-time to determine each action. The Pathfinder online game is built around huge communities of players with a wide variety of careers and a combat system that will run in real-time.
BTW: We've said both of these things many times, in many places. None of this should be a surprise to anyone.
I would say that one of the dead-ends that has been thoroughly explored and found wanting is the idea of open world sandbox play with lots of PvP that requires player skill and fast-twitch responses. Sounds great (to some folks), but in practice its not commercially viable.
First, if you want those kinds of games, the FPS market is waiting for you. They do it better than Goblinworks would ever be able to.
Second, while it is not obvious, in most MMOs there's a multi-second latency between actions. Most MMOs hide this in the animations (you feel like you're in total control but actually the client is showing you pretty pictures while it waits for the next cycle in the command queue). This latency makes aiming, and fast-twitch responses work much more poorly than you intuitively think they should which generates complaints about "lag" and "unresponsive controls". The larger the number of participants in a given game space, the more commands need to be received by the server, processed, and the results transmitted to the clients. Combined with inherent latencies in the internet, these multi-second intervals are effectively a requirement (and they're the reason that you don't see games like Battlefield or Call of Duty scale above a couple of dozen fighters).
(EVE has apparently solved one of their longstanding problems with lag in huge fleet battles (more than 1,000 active participants on the same battlespace) by actually expanding the length of the command queue. They call this "time dilation", and it effectively slows down the action to allow the server and clients to process more commands between each "tick" of the queue. Everyone moves more slowly, and it takes longer for cooldowns to expire, but you can actually play with some meaningful level of interactivity as opposed to either watching a slide-show, or being disconnected due to timeouts. When we scale up to anything approaching that size, we may find ourselves needing a similar solution. This potential makes "player skill / fast-twitch" games even less viable.)
Third, because of market segmentation (see point #1 above), the audience for open world / sandbox MMO play contains relatively few people who actually want this kind of game style, compared with the total number of folks who are interested in the general concept. Catering to it tends to alienate the majority, and never really satisfies the target minority.
So don't expect it in Pathfinder Online.
2013:
2014:Darkfall (1.0) was a potential success. It was such a success that at launch, demand to play the game overwhelmed the payment system, and the patching system. The result was months of poor quality experience for early adopters. It never really recovered from its botched launch. But the fact that it had a botched launch because demand was stratospheric PROVES that there is a huge demand for a fantasy sandbox with extensive PvP.
Darkfall has other problems, most notably a failure to develop the rest of its game systems rapidly enough to create a functioning economic system, or to provide meaningful territorial control on a large scale for a large number of powers. But the demand was clearly on its side when it launched.
So far, since Ultima Online, EVE has been the only game to get a good mix of PvP combat, territorial control, and player-driven economy. The others have missed the sweet spot,
AH! One of the biggest pet peeves I have with the definitions of these terms. I'm not saying you are wrong when you say this is a widely accepted definition, but I'm telling you the definition is wrong and we should push back against it.
What you are describing is an "Open World" game, not a "Sandbox". "Open World" is not the opposite of Theme Park, it is the opposite of a Railroad. Railroad games remove the option from the player to move within the game world in meaningfully unrestricted ways. Last of Us is a Railroad, for example. So are most single-player FPS campaigns.
"Sandbox" and "Open World" are not synonyms. Skyrim is an Open World game but it is not primarily a Sandbox. Ditto for the Grand Theft Auto franchise.
Sandboxes are games where the player has agency. They are games where the player can make meaningful persistent changes to the game environment and in the case of a multiplayer game, where those changes are visible to the other players.
Minecraft is a Sandbox, for example.
Pathfinder Online will be a Sandbox because the players will make meaningful persistent changes in the form of (most) all the gear in the game being crafted by the players, by the player's ability to build persistent structures (and destroy those structures), and by interacting with the escalation cycles. The players will have a persistent effect on the way the map is divided into territories and by determining which groups of players control which territories.
We describe Pathfinder Online as a hybrid themepark/sandbox because there are elements of the game design which the players cannot change persistently, like the terrain, the location and progression of escalations, the locations where structures can be erected and eventually dungeons and explorable areas gated in some way from the main map. Our game is 80% sandbox, 20% theme park. It would be fair to say that most MMOs are hybrids to a greater or lesser degree - World of Warcraft, for example, has crafting so there are persistent player-created objects in the game world; they just have very little effect on it and aren't the focus of most player's attention most of the time. World of Warcraft and its siblings are 5% sandbox, 95% themepark which is why we just call them "Themeparks".
Goblinworks Executive Founder
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Of course: WoW is bad and EVE is good...HAHAHAH
Nah man, we can improve this by: while hearhstone worked for wow, and clone jumps workes in EVE, what will work in PFO? See what I mean?
Just so you know, if you want to use mockery and caricature as an argument, I have a lot of time to lose, and enough pettiness to fight back, but I think that we can use a more civilised way to discuss.
Actually, I haven't played EvE for two years, and I am, playing WoW. I don't have any prejudice against WoW, but these are not the same type of games.
I perfectly know what you mean, but the problematic here is the importance of travelling time, and the dangers of travel. These have absolutely zero importance in WoW. You will not lose what you just gathered if you die, and Stormwind will not be destroyed by your enemies if you are far away. If the city is captured, everything will go back to normal five minutes later, anyway. You could give the possibility to everyone to instantaneously transport anywhere in the world with no cooldown, that wouldn't change anything in the balance of the game.
EvE, on the other hand, has the exact same problematic than PFO, about distance. Which is why a solution working perfectly in EvE, would work perfectly here.
The point of the jump clone isn't the scientific or roleplay aspect, the point is how it works. It gives you the possibility to instantaneously transport in a distant, friendly and already visited location, every 16 hours, without the possibility to transport any object whatsoever.
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Avena, while some of those comments are known, other do not. And now I don't know what to think... ¬¬
Just so you know, if you want to use mockery and caricature as an argument, I have a lot of time to lose, and enough pettiness to fight back, but I think that we can use a more civilised way to discuss.
When good humorous notes was threaten so badly in here? Could we just pretend that we are not on the "internet of trolls" and being in a friendly enviroment?
Audocet, I understand the EVE-sandbox versus WoW-theme-park status, what I don't understand is why people take it to a personal level when someone change it to in Fantasy versus Sci-FI perpective, or Tabletop vs MMO.
While Themed park is not our focus here, why do not analise some features from these game in a sandbox context?
Again, the SENSATION of mine is that people tend to discard anything out of EVE, because is not eVE, and by doing this are letting a lot of good ideas to be explored in the vaccuum.
PS: Sorry if I offended you by the joke in last post, it was not intended... Remember Roseblood Accord: "To refrain from the wanton giving of offence"
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Kemedo:
Ryan does point out what you're angling at,
>"There are a lot of lessons to be learned from previous sandbox games not just EVE. EVE got a lot of things right and anyone who has played EVE will likely find a lot of similarities with Pathfinder Online, but the two games will be very different as well."
I think the experience, the success all conspire to make EVE "a go-to" reference point. I mean there are other sandbox/sandboxy type designs out there and some have one or two great systems eg Ryzom had a cool harvesting thing, lotrs a cool music thing, gw1 a cool pick n mix skill thing, but few really hit the virtual world integration of player-driven and player-crafted content via a unifying economy, it seems.
There seems to be a lot of scope for politics in PFO that drives or controls outright wars between settlements via treaties and diplomacy, this could be a really positive development for PFO that reigns in some of the (hehe I'm doing it now!) capitalism on steroids of EVE.
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Goblinworks Executive Founder
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From discussing the PFO game with friends who play the Pathfinder Role Playing game, they are quite leery of the influence of Eve. Also the PVP elements are also discouraging people as well.
Now this is purely "hearsay" what I have heard from talking with friends and other players playing in Pathfinder Organized play.
I think if there is a cooperative element of PFO that should be emphasized. That might better draw players from Pathfinder, cooperative game in and allay some of their fears.
But then again this is just my opinion.
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Goblin Squad Member
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It's what I've been saying for a while now: the PvP is the cooperative play. If bandits are bugging you during gathering or trading, bring some buddies. If you want to claim a PoI for yourselves but all the nearby ones are taken by other settlements, bring some buddies. If you want to experience the intensity of a full-scale battle as part of an epic war, bring a whole lot of buddies. Just because you aren't cooperating with every other person on the server doesn't mean you aren't cooperating.
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Goblin Squad Member
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... the PVP elements are also discouraging people as well.
I think if there is a cooperative element of PFO that should be emphasized. That might better draw players from Pathfinder...
I think Ryan is making the right call. It would be unforgivable to lure people into PFO by emphasizing the cooperative elements without making it absolutely, unmistakably clear that they will be killed by other players. Much better to give the game a chance to prove that the PvP will not degenerate to toxicity and then attract those players.
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Goblinworks Executive Founder
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Audocet, I understand the EVE-sandbox versus WoW-theme-park status, what I don't understand is why people take it to a personal level when someone change it to in Fantasy versus Sci-FI perpective, or Tabletop vs MMO.
While Themed park is not our focus here, why do not analise some features from these game in a sandbox context?
Again, the SENSATION of mine is that people tend to discard anything out of EVE, because is not eVE, and by doing this are letting a lot of good ideas to be explored in the vaccuum.
And your concerns are valid concerns, we are not making "Meddieval EvE". But falling into the other extreme of the spectrum isn't good either.
I only pronounced myself, on your condemnation of the specific concept of the jump-clone. Not because "it's from EvE", but because it's better. In the specific question of travelling, no, I don't think that we can take anything from Theme Park.
I am against any kind of quick travel in EvE, I don't want it. But lots of people want some, and I can't just dismiss their existence, but I can advocate for a good compromise. And from my experience, jump-clone is the best compromise. Which doesn't necessarily mean that we can't find a better one, of course.
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And your concerns are valid concerns, we are not making "Meddieval EvE". But falling into the other extreme of the spectrum isn't good either.
(...)
I am against any kind of quick travel in EvE, I don't want it. But lots of people want some, and I can't just dismiss their existence, but I can advocate for a good compromise. And from my experience, jump-clone is the best compromise. Which doesn't necessarily mean that we can't find a better one, of course.
Understood and agreed.
Again, I only quoted the Jump-Clone as an exemple of EVE feature considered to be in PFO. In fact my opinion of fast travels were given in the Teleport post (good with restrictions), and it's not totally against it. And saying the truth was not the intend of this post.
The real intend was trying to talk outside the dueto EVE:WoW, but that ship was sailing...
Thank you for posting tho.
