Goblin Squad Member
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That being said, I don't think "holding their feet to the fires" (the dev team) really accomplishes what you think it will. As a programmer, I can tell you that after working 60+ hour weeks, having a client send me a nasty gram really saps my desire to work on the project.
At this point I think the only thing that could revive any level of hope that this game will see some form of functional crowdforging is regular posts by all members of the GW team or videos of internal discussions and debated by the dev team. I know I'm not at all alone in a growing sense of discontent with the way Ryan is taking this project and a lot of curiosity about what Lee Hammock and Tork Shaw have to say.
If nothing else hearing the internal debates will give us a better understanding of how decisions are made which allows us to be more educated crowdforgers.
Goblinworks Executive Founder
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Trying to have it both ways is simply semantics that no one is buying (literally).Nope. Adoucette was talking about people getting in on day 1 because they don't want to miss out on XP even though the game sucks. When Decius said (effectively) You can do that, he replied (implied) that it was bad advice.
Either it's worth doing, or it's bad advice. It can't be both. He really can't have it both ways.
That doesn't say people can't continue to p*ss and moan about it. Every person has the option to complain or to walk away from a deal they feel is bad, but no one is under any obligation to feel sorry for whatever decision those people make.
Yes, you can have it both ways Cadalath, if the game is launched when he's supposed to be, not just to take people's money.
And by the way you are aware that I wasn't talking about me, I was thinking about the guy sspitfire responded to ? The guy complained that he didn't want to loose xp, but He thought it was unfair to launch the game in a very very bad state.
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Goblin Squad Member
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It won't drown, it just isn't going to shoot up in a heartbeat like a skyrocket on Independence day. Or Bastille day for that matter. And Ryan appears to have the project well in hand to me.
Only a god would expect Athena to spring full grown from the head of Zeus.
We all knew, or should have known. that the open and transparent development style GW was taking would show us the beginnings rather than only the end product. We all knew or should have known it would take time for the game to develop into its planned evolution. And like the lovers of sausages being shown how sausages are actually made, some of us should have expected to be a little put off by it. Work isn't pretty. It should have been no surprise.
I hope the team manages eventually to shame all the nay-sayers with a brilliant work of art at the end, but I recognize that brilliant works of art are exceedingly rare.
Mostly I am interested in what is, to me, the most significant design experiment in current game development: Regulation of viable PvP. Will it work? How might it affect the history of game development? The problem it attempts to address has been a monumental impediment to the genre.
This one piece is worth more than the donation I made and I look forward to seeing the experiment in action. Polished grass, for one example, is chickenfeed.
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Goblin Squad Member
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And by the way you are aware that I wasn't talking about me, I was thinking about the guy sspitfire responded to ? The guy complained that he didn't want to loose xp, but He thought it was unfair to launch the game in a very very bad state.
I was fully aware of that, which is why I said "talking about people getting in on day 1 because they don't want to miss out on XP" which doesn't refer to you at all. My understanding was that you had abandoned all interest in playing the game a long time ago, and are now just here for some other reason.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Yes, you can have it both ways Cadalath, if the game is launched when he's supposed to be, not just to take people's money.
The difference between us appears to be that I am fully aware of how small a horse I have in this race. My contribution is small, and I don't imagine that any experience I have or haven't got entitles me to dictate to people who's livelihoods depend on the outcome.
You may know more about what makes online games succeed than anyone else in the world. Or you might not. Lisa and Ryan are entrepreneurs, and they will have successes, and they will have failures, but they will choose their path, and have the right to because they are the ones putting their homes at risk.
What irks me is the attitude that an individual's brilliance and experience gives them some right to demand control over a product that other people have poured many times as much money and most of their waking time for a couple of years into.
I'm capable of liking or not liking how something proceeds without taking it as a personal attack or affront of some kind.
The game will succeed or fail on the choices that Ryan and his group make. The world will be here the next day, regardless, and I will still be feeding my family. Get over yourself.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Stationary ranged attacks were explicitly introduced as a temporary work-around, not a permanent decision. There is no question that GW intended to remove (or at least reconsider) stationary ranged attacks after introducing other things to balance the power of kiting, like ammo consumption. They haven't introduced those other balancing factors yet, so ranged attacks are still stationary.
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Goblin Squad Member
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In My Opinion, people are unduly worried about earning XP from Day One. I started playing EVE Online seven or eight years after people first started earning XP. I was not crippled in the game. I could still contribute to my corporation in a meaningful way. I could still have fun. According to the "must be there on Day One" philosophy, I should have been outclassed by everyone who started before me, miserable, and hopeless. I was none of those things.
Like I said, just my personal opinion.
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Trying to rate this games early access to a completed game is like reviewing a half-cooked plate of unseasoned spaghetti. Sure the cooks get to taste it, put forth ideas how to make it taste and present better, but you'd be a damn fool if you think the establishment would be ready to put it on the public menu.
"This plate of spongy noodles lacks both flavor, proper cooking time, garnish, sauce, as well as any side dishes. I recommend we all start shouting as loudly as possible in the kitchen demanding our opinions be heard and responded to by the limited staff of cooks and chefs available for our abuse."
What we're doing now is stepping inside the kitchen with special VIP reservations so we can have a say in what the eventual meal will be like. What GW is trying to get together is a simple workable meal that will satisfy proper paying customers (Not the VIP input folks) in a year or so.
Additionally, they simply don't have the time to DO all the things you want, as well as answer every harebrained question we have with justifications like "3 pinches of garlic per tsp butter is too much, your opinion and volume are not appropriate to the kitchen or recipe." They are working on a budget something like 5-10% of what the industry standard uses, and their time is FAR too important to waste trying to fulfill (Or even consider) personal requests like polishing the grass, implementing feuds, more racial choices, lycanthropy, a better UI, or troublesome ranged combat issues. They still have a pot full of half cooked noodles, so quit crowding the stove and try to realize the model they are using is to help US better understand how an MMO is made, and not for us to demand from THEM what we want (Right NOW).
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Goblinworks Executive Founder
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(...)because they are the ones putting their homes at risk.(...)
Er, actually, that's the point : they are taking very very minimal risks, in comparison to other entrepreneurs. Because if they fail, the majority of the money they will lose is your money, my money, and other people money. And since we are not investors, they can just ignore us without any problem whatsoever, and they were never pay us back. That is a very good situation for them, and I don't think that Audoucet's occasional complaints aren't worth 1600$.
Get over myself ? You, should get over myself.
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Goblinworks Executive Founder
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Trying to rate this games early access to a completed game is like reviewing a half-cooked plate of unseasoned spaghetti. Sure the cooks get to taste it, put forth ideas how to make it taste and present better, but you'd be a damn fool if you think the establishment would be ready to put it on the public menu.
Except PFO is already on the public menu. You being happy to pay to eat half-cooked spaghetti is your problem, but if everybody do that, in five years, nobody will bother cooking spaghetti, and I will be forced to eat s!%! because of you.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I think the word you're looking for is minority, not majority, Audoucet. GW had already raised enough money to create the game from actual investors before they started the second Kickstarter. Our money helped the game get ready faster. If the Kickstarter had failed, they would still have made the game, just more slowly.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Trying to have it both ways is simply semantics that no one is buying (literally).Nope. Adoucette was talking about people getting in on day 1 because they don't want to miss out on XP even though the game sucks. When Decius said (effectively) You can do that, he replied (implied) that it was bad advice.
Either it's worth doing, or it's bad advice. It can't be both. He really can't have it both ways.
That doesn't say people can't continue to p*ss and moan about it. Every person has the option to complain or to walk away from a deal they feel is bad, but no one is under any obligation to feel sorry for whatever decision those people make.
I was perhaps not clear, I was referring to whether it is beta or not beta, not what Audoucet was arguing.
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Goblinworks Executive Founder
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I think the word you're looking for is minority, not majority, Audoucet. GW had already raised enough money to create the game from actual investors before they started the second Kickstarter. Our money helped the game get ready faster. If the Kickstarter had failed, they would still have made the game, just more slowly.
1.3 mil KS on a 5 mil budget. Add the 1000$ Alphas & all the EE/EE2/OE, and all the addons & house things. Plus, the fact that investors came because of the first KS (that was the point).
Even if you are right, my point remains, they have a lot less risks than other companies.
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Goblin Squad Member
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No, your point was that they aren't putting their homes at risk.
My point is that (while I may have exaggerated about their homes and may not), they still have far more invested here than any of us, including their jobs. And no Kickstarter backer should feel like they can demand changes based on their impression of whether the game will succeed.
Your opinions are no less welcome than anyone's. Accusations that the game will fail unless they do it the way you want are not welcome. Whether you're right or not.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I think the word you're looking for is minority, not majority, Audoucet. GW had already raised enough money to create the game from actual investors before they started the second Kickstarter. Our money helped the game get ready faster. If the Kickstarter had failed, they would still have made the game, just more slowly.1.3 mil KS on a 5 mil budget. Add the 1000$ Alphas & all the EE/EE2/OE, and all the addons & house things. Plus, the fact that investors came because of the first KS (that was the point).
Even if you are right, my point remains, they have a lot less risks than other companies.
$5 Million is a lot to lose buddy. Go raise $5 million for a company and get back to me when you aren't sweating its success.
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Goblin Squad Member
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People keep acting like we're expecting PFO to put out the full product error free on day one. That's not at all what's going on here. It's more like this.
Goblinworks promised to deliver us our pasta quickly by cutting out all the non-essential ingredients. We were still supposed to get a tasty dish of noodles and sauce.
What they've delivered instead is an unfinished sauce with raw blobs of meat they call meatballs and if you want any noodles with it you have to give up half your sauce.
Where the hell is the feud system and why were a dynamic escalation system and auction house prioritized over it? Why do we have so many damn different weapon types when not a single one of them is working as it should?
Had they released this game with no crafting, static mob spawns, and 3-4 weapon types but made all that work properly and at least given us some way to have consensual duels without rep loss I would be MUCH happier.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Even at the $5000 level of the KickStarter, that only accounts for 0.1% of total funding.
The game is being made, Audoucet with your money or without it. The product you signed on to give money to, will still be delivered. Whether or not you like what is delivered isn't the companies responsibility. Part of your "rewards" for giving them money is to be involved in the development process. If you spend most of your time just complaining about the game without giving it time to fully develop or trying to help that development, you have only yourself to blame for the angst you feel.
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Goblin Squad Member
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The main reason to get involved at EE if you are committed to the success of a particular settlement is the important thing from a settlement point of view, establishing an in-game presence and creating the reputation of your settlement for good or bad, is already happening in Alpha. After EE it will be even more important.
Settlements where the leadership and most of the members elect not to play yet because its "not fun" or "too buggy" will struggle to survive later on. Even being inactive in Alpha is bad, any settlement that stays inactive after EE will be guaranteed to disappear.
@ Andius
I agree with pretty much all of that Andius. I haven't been here as long, so I certainly have no insight as to why certain things were prioritized over others - I do wonder how much influence the alpha community had over that prioritization.
I can only imagine that the thought process could have been that a functioning sandbox economy was one of the unique-sell-positions that was needed to differentiate it from competitor products, in order to attract interest.
I can see what you mean though, specifically how it could be analogous to the module release plan that Star Citizen is using.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I would respectfully ask people to stop responding to ragebois. It's completely unproductive, it encourages them, and the engagement serves their ends. Seriously, just let eyes skim over it--it's crap anyways.
I would respectfully ask people to stop responding to fanboys. It's completely unproductive, it encourages them, and all they do is drone back excuses and faulty logic. Seriously, just let eyes skim over it--it's crap anyways.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I do believe the auction house had to come before the PvP stuff. Not because it's a more important feature, just because the economy has to be in before you can fight over the economy.
The problem is the current non-functional AH is worse than none at all and was a waste of DEV resources.
I agree a functioning AH is an essential feature unless you want to play "medieval gladiator dueling tournament online" however the current one is pointless.
They should have left the AH out completely OR built a working one. One or the other. The current one is a waste of space.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I do believe the auction house had to come before the PvP stuff. Not because it's a more important feature, just because the economy has to be in before you can fight over the economy.
Player-to-player trade is going on more so than AH trade, based on my own experience and knowledge.
Company, and account shared banking is actually more useful and important to the player economy than auction houses in my opinion. To think much of what was supposed to be in builds 7 and 8 were put off for AH is a shame.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Player-to-player trade is going on more so than AH trade, based on my own experience and knowledge.Company, and account shared banking is actually more useful and important to the player economy than auction houses in my opinion. To think much of what was supposed to be in builds 7 and 8 were put off for AH is a shame.
Agreed - player to player trading has been great and everyone was very helpful. Yesterday I travelled half an hour to Aragon to exchange some Weak Varnish recipe against some Steel Wire +2 recipe.
About the Auction house ... It works - well - a little. I have been a frequent buyer - looking for recipes and occasionally for some raw materials when I forgot one ingredient and was far from my vault.
But using the auction house is aking to be masochistic. There is sometimes a small reward - a cheap ingredient or recipe - but if people complain about grinding then searching them is close to it - and absolute unnecessary.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I do believe the auction house had to come before the PvP stuff. Not because it's a more important feature, just because the economy has to be in before you can fight over the economy.Player-to-player trade is going on more so than AH trade, based on my own experience and knowledge.
Company, and account shared banking is actually more useful and important to the player economy than auction houses in my opinion. To think much of what was supposed to be in builds 7 and 8 were put off for AH is a shame.
We will outgrow player-to-player trade the second PvP starts gobbling up resources.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I rather not reply to either ragebois or fanbois they are two sides of the same coin. I try not to be either one as well they both correct in certain points and woefully wrong in others. Only time will tell which is which so I will wait and see what develops neither expecting total success or total failure.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I do believe the auction house had to come before the PvP stuff. Not because it's a more important feature, just because the economy has to be in before you can fight over the economy.
Well, Ryan's prediction that there would soon be one of every item on the AH has turned out to be very wrong.
Due to the poor implementation that does not allow you to sort items by what's actually for sale combine with dwindling interest for this game the AH barely sees use. Even EVE allows you to sort by whats available and that game has a MUCH larger community.
Player to player trade has worked plenty well for other similar sized games and it would have worked here to had they decided to invest that time in hammering out core systems like combat to actually get players playing the game instead.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I do believe the auction house had to come before the PvP stuff. Not because it's a more important feature, just because the economy has to be in before you can fight over the economy.Well, Ryan's prediction that there would soon be one of every item on the AH has turned out to be very wrong.
If you could list items for up to 3 months like EVE I would happily have put +2/+3 versions of every armor and weapon up at TK and a few other AH.
But with them dropping back to the vault every 48 hours its to much of a PITA to bother anymore - I have retired my crafter.
Of course there are other issues as well including everyone in Alpha seems to want to make everything personally and the fact that unless you announce in chat you have high plus gear in the AH absolutely no-one has any idea it is there.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I still don't understand how some people think they have the right to attack others for seeing potential. Most of us have things we want to see but are willing to put up with a very rough version of the game on the way, which to be honest is exactly what we are 'owed' from GW for supporting the kickstarter, not all the bells and whistles a VERY vocal minority seems to think its owed.
I will agree player husks/encumbrance/organized PvP should be the next elements added but would have no problem starting the clock if told a definite timeline on them if that timeline was only a few weeks.
Some people want to make cooking analogies I prefer thinking of this project as a statue being carved out of raw stone. The start of EE is only the roughest shaping of the final product and our contribution most properly will be in adding details yet too many think they are entitled to dictate every aspect of the game.
As to those who claim that game sites will doom the game because it doesn't meet their expectations all I can say is I rarely use those site as anything but a means to find what new games are coming out, and I doubt im alone in that regard.
I would suspect the entire GW team is currently desperately trying to finish THEIR goals for the EE launch. I would also imagine they are scratching their heads and wondering how the WoT ended up with a player NAP when they must have been expecting a bloodbath that would occupy us while they polished existing systems and added new content.
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Goblin Squad Member
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...I have retired my crafter.
Perhaps, it being Alpha, people don't want to bother with the "spending money" aspect of things, and are trying out the "do I want to do any crafting in the live game" part of testing? If Goblinworks needs the auction houses tested, perhaps they should put up the seed-items.
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Goblin Squad Member
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The issue that's dooming PFO is of all the people in this community I've discussed the issue with outside these forums, they say that when they show people this game the vast majority are left completely unimpressed, and quit.
There isn't any single feature of PFO I can point to and say "That really sets this game apart" based on what is in game so far.
It's all promises of what is coming in the future of this game. I've played A LOT of games that make A LOT of grand promises concerning the content they will put in one day. Most either fail to deliver, or deliver long after everyone has already lost interest.
And every single one of those games has members in it's community willing to defend it tooth and nail and tell you why it's the best game ever made. This community is not unique. This game is barely unique. These ideas are barely unique.
If something doesn't change it's going to end up just like Darkfall/Mortal/Xsyon/Wurm. A tiny little die-hard community constantly looking over the horizon at what's promised while slogging through a game that delivers a few unique features in a package that's sub-par overall. A game always promising it's salvation is coming with the next expansion and that sees a steep decline in interest after the peak activity of the expansion has passed.
That's certainly not what I thought I was signing onto when GW was talking about what an experienced team they had and how good being linked with Paizo was for them.
You can say "You're expecting too much." But LiF is delivering a package that is fun to play and really set apart from it's competitors in a least one major area right now. And it's in alpha too.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Well, Ryan's prediction that there would soon be one of every item on the AH has turned out to be very wrong.
That prediction was for EE and I know that you know that.
Due to the poor implementation that does not allow you to sort items by what's actually for sale combine with dwindling interest for this game the AH barely sees use.
The AH needs a sort for available items but dwindling interest? For Alpha?
Player to player trade has worked plenty well for other similar sized games and it would have worked here to had they decided to invest that time in hammering out core systems like combat to actually get players playing the game instead.
The AH is very important for 2 of the 6 roles currently in the game. The combat roles get the WoT, the non combat roles get the AH. The AH is a core system.
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Goblin Squad Member
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...when they show people this game the vast majority are left completely unimpressed...
Ryan's said often that he doesn't expect this to be a game for everyone from Moment One. Perhaps you've simply proven his point, and you might want to invite people to evaluate PFO at some later point down the road, instead of giving them their first impressions when you yourself don't believe in the product enough to give it a solid sales-job.
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Goblin Squad Member
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As to those who claim that game sites will doom the game because it doesn't meet their expectations all I can say is I rarely use those site as anything but a means to find what new games are coming out, and I doubt im alone in that regard.
You'd think that with "gamergate" still raging people would have somewhat less sheepish attitudes towards the power of these corporate thralls. Gaming sites can blow me.
This is coming from someone who does paid reviews for a living.
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CEO, Goblinworks
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I think it's hard to find a sandbox MMO with a balance between crafting and adventuring some, but not an overwhelming amount of PvP.
Darkfall is overwhelmed by PvP.
Most of the other fantasy sandbox games I've looked at have either had an emphasis on crafting or an emphasis on adventuring but don't have much balance (and seem to not function because of that; there's no reason to craft in the games with little adventure, and no reason to adventure in the games with little crafting).
I think there are no games you can say "this is a fantasy version of EVE" about, except for Pathfinder Online. From what I can tell, for MMOs, a rough balance between crafting and adventuring, and PvP as an element but not the overwhelming focus of the game is unique to EVE and Pathfinder. To be fair, Pathfinder Online is not a fantasy version of EVE as it is today, but it roughly parallels EVE when EVE was released in 2003.
As far as I know there are no fantasy MMOs where players can make persistent changes to their characters based on collective action in the way that Pathfinder enables via the Settlement mechanic. War of Towers will make that happen immediately, and the long term plan is very rich and robust in this respect.
As far as I know there are no fantasy MMOs where players can directly contribute to the design of core features and balancing in the way we are with Crowdforging. There may be no MMOs at all which have taken this to the degree we have taken it and will take even further.
There are no other MMOs that tap into the rich backstory and world development of Golarion, a world that has hundreds of thousands of vested players.
I'll agree that there's no single thing (except the IP) that Pathfinder Online has that no other game has, but I would strongly argue that no other game has the same matrix of those features that Pathfinder Online does.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I do believe the auction house had to come before the PvP stuff. Not because it's a more important feature, just because the economy has to be in before you can fight over the economy.Player-to-player trade is going on more so than AH trade, based on my own experience and knowledge.
Company, and account shared banking is actually more useful and important to the player economy than auction houses in my opinion. To think much of what was supposed to be in builds 7 and 8 were put off for AH is a shame.
Thing is nobody is truly playing alpha competitively. Yeah sure, TEO is getting their kicks pulling off "first tier 2 item" but that's not the type of competition these systems are built for.
The AH is for competitive trading. Crafters and gatherers looking to make coin. In alpha crafters will give you +3 items for free just to see what it looks like.
The gathering/escalations loop will be much more interesting when there is a race to get the resources.
Let's see how many more people start logging in when towers need to be defended in a permanent game.
Right now it's like poker with no chips or betting.
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Goblin Squad Member
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There are people that are too positive and too negative, and that creates a situation where other don't want to come in and comment and put in their 2 cents, and those are the people that should be talking.
The truth of the matter is that the game needs a lot of work, but we all know this, and there are some systems that a lot of people agree need to be implemented for MVP, that just aren't there. On top of this there are some play styles, not niche, main play styles that aren't really being represented fully within the MVP.
I will start, and post some positives and negatives.
Positive:
I like the refining and crafting system and the nuances.
I like the keyword system.
I like the experience system and the way we train.
I like the expendables and power systems.
I like the escalations.
I like that the game encourages groups.
I like the aspect of War of Towers.
Negative:
I don't like the shallowness of the combat system.
I don't like the Settlement/Company UI/Function
I don't like the AH.
I don't like War of Towers functions.
I don't like inventory management.
Lacking Features for MVP:
Encumbrance
Player Looting
Lacking Features for MVP that my guildmates think:
A more robust Escalations system.
PvE Content.
Making PvE matter more, because it is the first experiences that people coming into the game will be having.
Customizing Chat windows.
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Goblin Squad Member
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There are people that are too positive and too negative, and that creates a situation where other don't want to come in and comment and put in their 2 cents, and those are the people that should be talking.
The truth of the matter is that the game needs a lot of work, but we all know this, and there are some systems that a lot of people agree need to be implemented for MVP, that just aren't there. On top of this there are some play styles, not niche, main play styles that aren't really being represented fully within the MVP.
I will start, and post some positives and negatives.
Positive:
I like the refining and crafting system and the nuances.
I like the keyword system.
I like the experience system and the way we train.
I like the expendables and power systems.
I like the escalations.
I like that the game encourages groups.
I like the aspect of War of Towers.Negative:
I don't like the shallowness of the combat system.
I don't like the Settlement/Company UI/Function
I don't like the AH.
I don't like War of Towers functions.
I don't like inventory management.Lacking Features for MVP:
Encumbrance
Player LootingLacking Features for MVP that my guildmates think:
A more robust Escalations system.
PvE Content.
Making PvE matter more, because it is the first experiences that people coming into the game will be having.
Customizing Chat windows.
So in summary, fix the AH/inventory/bank and defer WoT until after EE so it can be sorted properly and we are right to go EE ??