Goblin Squad Member
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The Blog will be live at this link shortly!
Not shortly enough!
Wild predictions if what the blog holds? My guess, delay of EE. Guess away, fellow Goblinses!
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Goblin Squad Member
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The Blog will be live at this link shortly!Not shortly enough!
Wild predictions if what the blog holds? My guess, delay of EE. Guess away, fellow Goblinses!
My guess, delay of EE.My guess is anything but delay of EE.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Great. I took time off work for the first day of EE...and now I find out its been moved. *sighs*Ayup, I imagine several are in that boat. Guess I'll look at the honey-do list and try to make some progress before EE.
There may well be people out there that took the first week off to get setup after EE. Which will be one of the reasons GW were trying to avoid changing the announced EE date.
In reality if XP dates from login time you need only login at startup and then comeback even days later at no great loss. If the proposal that characters logging in anytime in the first few weeks get full XP back to day one eventuates it may not be necessary to login on day one at all.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I'm actually glad they are delaying EE rather then force a release on a certain date regardless of quality and viability.
I am disappointed I did not see any mention of tool tips, skill descriptions, "OR logic" for prequals, etc. related to one of the most important parts of the game, being able to train and level characters.
I have to say I am not thrilled with item durability going in this early given how many lag/ctd deaths I experienced last week (ctd and respawn in a 12-15 mob group for a 7-8 death chain at one point) and how little time there was to actually play the game after farming gear to actually use my characters abilities.
I would have just as soon item durability stay out until AFTER the players have actually formed a market to sustain replacing gear WITHOUT farming all of alpha.
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Goblin Squad Member
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In reality if XP dates from login time you need only login at startup and then comeback even days later at no great loss. If the proposal that characters logging in anytime in the first few weeks get full XP back to day one eventuates it may not be necessary to login on day one at all.
It looks like that tech already in place- characters logging in late Thursday night were getting back xp to the time the servers came up.
This is an important point though: you do not need to play every day to advance your character. Xp accumulates regardless. Play when you like, and how you like- worry about helping your settlement or your bank account or some fresh markees in Thornkeep, not about leveling up.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I'm actually glad they are delaying EE rather then force a release on a certain date regardless of quality and viability.
I am disappointed I did not see any mention of tool tips, skill descriptions, "OR logic" for prequals, etc. related to one of the most important parts of the game, being able to train and level characters.
I have to say I am not thrilled with item durability going in this early given how many lag/ctd deaths I experienced last week (ctd and respawn in a 12-15 mob group for a 7-8 death chain at one point) and how little time there was to actually play the game after farming gear to actually use my characters abilities.
I would have just as soon item durability stay out until AFTER the players have actually formed a market to sustain replacing gear WITHOUT farming all of alpha.
Yeah maybe the shrine spawn points need some sort of magical barrier. Though there is a risk some players may use that as an exploit.
Currently if you happen to die right on the shrine and are badly outnumbered the monster mobs are sitting right there waiting to do it again when you respawn.
Don't forget to vote on MMORPG.com if you haven't already =)
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Goblin Squad Member
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Yeah maybe the shrine spawn points need some sort of magical barrier. Though there is a risk some players may use that as an exploit.
Currently if you happen to die right on the shrine and are badly outnumbered the monster mobs are sitting right there waiting to do it again when you respawn.
Respawn points are random at the moment because they want us exploring as much as possible. In-game, we will thread our respawn points and shouldn't ever be showing up somewhere unexpected. If a group is planning to explore a dangerous area and thread to it there, they should probably commit guards to the point.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I'm actually glad they are delaying EE rather then force a release on a certain date regardless of quality and viability.
I am disappointed I did not see any mention of tool tips, skill descriptions, "OR logic" for prequals, etc. related to one of the most important parts of the game, being able to train and level characters.
See here regarding tool tips. Hopefully, they'll be in Alpha 8.
The folks that are really invested in this game really don't mind a delay. 93% of the survey respondents were totally cool with a two week delay or more and most of those respondents pay a lot of attention to the forums and blog posts. Hell, 75% of respondents would happily accept a month delay, and that is completely independent of whether they are in Alpha or not!
If someone is upset about the delay, consider what all GW is trying to pull off and which is more important: a successful, strong launch delayed by a week or two; or a weak, buggy launch on the 15th.
The latter won't be worth staying home from work for.
I suspect their compromise was well thought out, so I am happy with it.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I kinda hope they delay a month. I mean really, why not? Open the game with the full map, companies, UI fixes, proto settlements, basic animations for most actions, full tool tip, stand in icons, etc...
Start off on the right foot with something the hard core fanbase can be proud of.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I'm guessing that things like PC-owned taverns will have to wait until the whole map is finished. I still wonder, though, when the various "Name" Packs, expendables, and working wondrous items like tokens will reach the game. Those might also be second stage EE items.
I hope that expendables will be first stage EE items. Roles just don't seem complete without them. If that meant another delay, I'd be fine with that.
The folks that are really invested in this game really don't mind a delay. 93% of the survey respondents were totally cool with a two week delay or more and most of those respondents pay a lot of attention to the forums and blog posts. Hell, 75% of respondents would happily accept a month delay, and that is completely independent of whether they are in Alpha or not!
If someone is upset about the delay, consider what all GW is trying to pull off and which is more important: a successful, strong launch delayed by a week or two; or a weak, buggy launch on the 15th.
The latter won't be worth staying home from work for.
I suspect their compromise was well thought out, so I am happy with it.
Yea, I mean... if they fix everything, but generally a delay is more that "wow we have more than we bargained for" opposed to "give us a few more days to shore everything up."
We shall see when it starts, but I for one didn't expect it to start then especially after seeing what alpha looked like. Too many crashes if nothing else.
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RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
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The folks that are really invested in this game really don't mind a delay. 93% of the survey respondents were totally cool with a two week delay or more and most of those respondents pay a lot of attention to the forums and blog posts. Hell, 75% of respondents would happily accept a month delay, and that is completely independent of whether they are in Alpha or not!
If someone is upset about the delay, consider what all GW is trying to pull off and which is more important: a successful, strong launch delayed by a week or two; or a weak, buggy launch on the 15th.
The latter won't be worth staying home from work for.
I suspect their compromise was well thought out, so I am happy with it.
In my case, I'm more upset because they announced it, and I took the time off after two weeks, waiting to see if it would be changed. Am I frustrated? Yes. Am I angry and pissed and so forth? No. But I am disappointed in them. In my opinion, if they thought it might be pushed back...they should have waited to announce it. It makes me much less likely to buy stuff from the store in general, and makes me more leery of contributing anything, especially my time. *shrugs*
But that's it. I don't intend to say anything more. I'll watch, play when I can...and then decide whether the game is worth any more of my time. I've already had enough of a pain in the butt getting my second enrollment package transferred to my wife, and I'm still not certain she got everything she was supposed to. My hopes are not high anymore.
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I am sorry you feel that way, Cydeth. They made a decision based on imperfect information, as did you. I'm not really sure it is their fault, personally, nor yours. It simply is.
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Goblin Squad Member
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TBH, I would also regard the 22nd as a tentative date.
They have basically said "all going well with no further crises we think we can get a limited EE with no companies and a smaller map up on the 22nd".
To me that suggests any further unexpected issues at all and EE will probably drop back to the 29th.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I would rather see them hold off until Player Loot Drops are in game, and there is some form of PVP option besides the War of Towers Arena matches.
Theoretically, won't we have another PVP option as soon as the player-run proto-settlements take over training from the NPC settlements? Reputation loss should become much less crippling when trainers don't automatically refuse to train low-reputation characters, and the attack-on-sight threshold of guards can be adjusted.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Overall Goblinworks should probably promise less and then "surprise" us with anything extra they do achieve.
Too much dev feedback about what is coming leads to player expectations and entitlement and the negative feedback when those expectations are not met is a killer for prospective new players reading forums.
On the other hand surprise new features generate good forum feedback of the "OMG this game never ceases to surprise me, we can be elves now " type.
On a related note, it would be good PR if Alpha players started to move any game mechanic discussions to the Alpha forums :D
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Goblin Squad Member
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This time, on Pedantry on Parade, Auction Houses versus Markets.
MMOs haven't really had auction houses for years. In their original form, auction houses hosted literal auctions. Players had a set amount of time to bid against one another, and at the end of that time, the person with the highest bid won. Some modern MMOs still leave that as a legacy option in the "auction house", but I'd venture a guess that at least 90% of transactions are sales for fixed prices, not bidding wars. Who wants to wait hours or days, when you could just hit the Buy It Now button? I'm willing to bet that MMO markets have only retained the name "auction house" because that's what they were called in Everquest 1 and Ultima Online, and games have just followed the established nomenclature.
EVE Online calls its market a market. Perhaps PFO should follow its example. We could even dress it up graphically as a collection of stalls with various wares displayed, and call it a marketplace. That would distance it from the stock-and-bond-trading connotations of "the market". Unless you have to wait for a timer to expire and have the highest bid at the buzzer, you're shopping, not participating in an auction.
(Kids today... walked uphill both ways... neck deep snow... liked it!)
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Goblin Squad Member
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Good point, Marketplace is definately a better word for this.
I remember those "auctions": you carefully bidded, waited for 2 days getting closer and closer to the end-time, and then someone simply snatched it for the "Buy Now" price. :) Yeah, that didn't work. At least with Ebay, the option to Buy Now disappears after someone made a bid (I think).
I kindoff like GW2's sytem, but not the fact that it is global across all servers (if you can still speak of that with GW2).
But there at least you have a choice to either buy something quickly (you buy the offering with the lowest price at that time, off course), or you put up a buy order for the item, at a lower price (but a little higher then another buyers offer) and wait till someone sells it for that price (same works for selling: fulfilll someones buy order for less money, or put it up for sale for a bit more and wait for someone who wants an instant buy).
It does not really matter if someone put up an even higher buy-order after you, your turn will come once all of his orders are fulfilled. Off course this only works well for goods with a high turnover like crafting materials. You are definately robbing yourself if you sell Iron Ore for the highest Buy-order: just put it up for a price near the highest Sell order (which can be up to 20% higher) and you will unload your Ore within minutes for a substantially higher price then if you did the instant-sell.
It is not a perfect system but it works for some goods. Not sure how a small local market would fare with that.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Am I the only one who is disappointed for the lack of a finished map, and the lack of companies at EE? Wont this favor the companies situated in the upper 3rd of the map? Others will have to relocate and risk being killed/looted (or at least loosing equipment durability) in the process...
I would rather wait another 3-4 weeks for an MVP than feeling I am paying a sub for something which isn't out of alpha yet...
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Goblin Squad Member
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I agree, I would like to skip the whole "4 settlements, only 1/3rd of the map" phase, and wait a little longer but maybe waiting too long is too much of a financial burden. There will always be more to finish and implement so I guess there really is never a good time to start monetizing the game. Do not forget the barebone budget that this game is made with. Every month of delay is costing them tens of thousands extra.
Personally I think the game is almost Viable, but not quit yet(i.e. people staying after the first month), then again you need to start somewhere. Bad rep about how unfinished it is will happen anyway. If the game-design is good, and they keep trucking on forward, they will survive that bad Rep, I am sure.
Hopefully enough will stay subbed so that the team can keep working on it in a steady pace. Maybe even hire an extra (UI) developer or two. :)
I know I will start using gametime from day 1, but I am a hardcore fan of the design.
