Goblin Squad Member
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@Bluddwolf and Avena. If you look at the subscriber numbers for Wurm, Mortal, and Darkfall you have the numbers for games that will drag on without shutting down, continually improving but doing so at a rate too slow to ever catch up with their competitors. I think at least Darkfall was somewhere in the 10k sub region so that's really what it takes to not have a backwards title like Mortal that gets more outdated as time goes on. And that was during a time where their only real competition was EVE. I wouldn't be surprised if those titles started to shut down as some of the newer ones hit the market. Even EVE itself may suffer greatly from the release of Star Citizen.
I suspect DF got good number due to less PvP Sandbox games, it's actually got more visceral combat and a good feature list.
And this makes me come back to the big danger for PFO:-
1. Combat
2. PvP
What would I do? Well if the scale was different as said, and if hence this derived Family System hence and if that led to limited skill-training per character per lifetime and simple limited slots (as well as function of limited time ie capacity) then some chars in Families could be trained up to be the Pathfinder Adventurer Classes.
If again from SCALE we have pockets of realms interspersed with huge swathes of wilderness (buffers of the end-game armies and also for trade reasons) and also community building reasons then these adventurers can do:-
1. Dungeons
2. Monster Hunter wilderness 101 PvE
It's do-able that the only PvP threat they come across is not other adventurers (though that could be quirked upon via exception rules) but bandits who'd be much lower ability ie on a level with guards for trade caravans.
In such a set-up I think PvP could be controlled successfully so people who want to "pve heroically" can do so unmolested.
Coming back to territory, soldiers and workers. These characters can interact. Soldiers can be "given to control" by the higher up status players to marshall in units around player lower status families running workers to run outposts and such like.
What you'd need then is intrusion could lead to capture or combat and death with rivals but also breaking of treaties which could lead to escalation and potentially breaking of all Treaties of the offending players so other groups could invade or some elaborate treaty system to keep low-level skirmish at the right periodic level before it escalates to war decs.
But I think PvP can be reigned in more successfully using the Family and character spread of functions more effectively than what PFO is trying to achieve atm with x1 char multi-classing. I mean the whole system doesn't even fit the above concept of kingdoms at war and kingdoms being built. And that's due to being bolted-on to x1 char that does everything.
In a sense you sort of want the emergent complexity of eusocial insects such as ants emerging with different castes doing different functions.
To add, imo, I don't believe "most players want to play heroes" what they want is their characters to do creative things that change things that pleases the player in a very personal way - this is exactly what Minecraft achieves and I even asked my nephews' young friends what is was about that game they liked and that was the answer I think I successfully managed to summarize out of their "Idk... it's sort of... jumble of things/anecdotes that they wanted to talk about that they did that they thought was special/really funny/scary/skillful etc... ."
This comes back to an assumption Ryan made before:-
These games do not succeed because most people want to be heroes to begin with, not "work up" to it by leading a mundane life in a simulated world first.
Again this is an insight worth remembering:-
Ideally we will have some things that you can do very early in your character's life that will meaningfully contribute to the success of your group in PvP.
So I think if you have a Family system each player is focusing on that as "their group" eg their holdings, their various skill-training to complement the Family assets then making the best connections with other families and at higher social levels providing soldiers/militia (via their own taxes on lower social families). So there's working in one's own group, among your neighbour groups and above and above. It also allows different families to concentrate depending on the scale and size of investment of gameplay they want to do on pvp or no pvp and even outsourcing pvp eg soldiers sending off for the pvp big shot players to manage and patrol.
Another quote:-
The logical way to play EVE is to do something as soon as you can do it, not wait until you can do it perfectly. During the time you're training to do it perfectly, you'll be learning how to actually use those ships and modules that you're training for. So when you get them, you'll be able to use them at a high level of proficiency. And you have all the fun of actually playing the game along the way.
This presupposes the "bloat in skill-training" ie unequal stats but it's a trade off of vets > newbs because player $ => skill-training = Time(investment) => return on power increase/variety in game => economic impacts and hence success.
However I think if Family System is employed at the lower levels certain roles/careers skill-training (call it peasant level for arguments sake) are accessible for these chars of small Family 2-3? maybe x1 PF archetype Class I'd go for rogue to choose an illicit path to steal from nearby families (internal parasitism is necessary to climb the greasy pole)... anyway the point is: they can make economic gains for the Family to get better infrastructure and assets for their family eg buy land to make a small farm or other economic activity as the basis for the game (lots of players here). At higher sub level bigger family and access to more roles more adventure class roles... but also more ability for their family to social progress which itself is a gate to more important roles higher up... that's the new loop of progression instead of the above one of "char power bloat". It's based on time/money investment -> opportunity => social progression = Access to more roles involved with interacting with other players hierarchically.
At the higher and higher level of large Family, new functionality wouldl be needed to allow several Families to share their Families everyhthing logging in as who as they please. This opens the door to more integregration and efficiency but also to "take-overs" by different factions within different families and hence "civil war". This could be at large scale and via many marriages.
Finally, to loop back to what I think players really want, Ryan said again somewhere:-
Gah can't find the Tome Of Knowledge quote (gah! just lost the write up here which was magisterial fuuu)... but coming back to what players want out of these games the sequence of events that produce emotions that then when combined into coherent story creation become "experiences"; and that is not only reserved for "heroic" stories but for a huge range of events over characters'life times and how those interact and impact on each other and shared events are interpreted by different characters for good or bad...
Take 2: Effectively using Families and extended functionality (eg automated recording of the players' screenshots and stats) for the player to then after a game session write up a journal of their characters lives and record this during their life-times... you are growing the story of the characters lives and histories and collecting this for others to read and enjoy. This to me of "Post Hoc" sstory creation is the essence of these virtual worlds successfully being realized as living and breathing (both in the simulation of the code) but also in the minds and shared culture of the participating players of the game.
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I feel like you have a lot of good ideas Avena, though due to their length they might be better expressed as a sound file or video. Lol
As for me I think I've come up with a pretty simple way to sum up my feelings on PFO. We are entering the third age of MMOs.
The First Age was The Dawn of MMOs. An age in which MMOs were so new no real standard had been established yet so titles were more innovative and unique.
The Second Age was The Age of Themeparks. Themeparks established themselves as a successful model and World of Warcraft was their king. Investors wanted more WoW like titles and nobody would put any money into titles that pushed the envelope too far.
The Third Age is The Age of Crowdfunding. Star Citizen blasts into the picture raising 10s of millions of dollars. All of a sudden innovative new titles are springing up left and right and some are getting millions to build their projects.
The factors I'm seeing that make Crowfunded titles succesful:
1. Early Graphical "Wow" Factor AKA pretty graphics in your initial trailer.
2. Promise the Sky with you Stretch Goals
3. Ongoing Crowdfunding
PFO kind of lacks all 3. It's graphics didn't wow anyone, it did promise the sky but not in its stretch goals. Nobody even really knows about it's plans unless they comb through blog after blog. And there was almost no Crowdfunding effort in-between the end of the KS and the beginning of EE.
PFO has one foot in both worlds. It's a failed prototype of the dawn of the third age. Those looking back on the second age see how given 10 years it could really be something. Those looking forward into the third age see how it's already failed.
It's an incredibly exciting time to be an MMO gamer. The innovative titles coming out are many fold. Those with all their eggs in the PFO basket need to broaden their horizons.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Tharak Venethorn -
1. Fantasy EVE = FFA PvP draw
2. Pathfinder PnP draw
It's the one thing I always found a bit strange with Ryan's approach going via a lean development model; which has this incompatibility in it above. I suspect the numbers of 1 (sandbox mmorpgs) made 2. pale in comparison and/or the data suggest 2. don't cross over much anyway?
And we see that with the KS, that the PnP crowd merely wanted the excellent quality stash on offer and not the game. This was always disconcerting and the feeling of disquiet I felt about this never went away.
However only very recently that disquiet feeling has bubbled up into verbalization and hence I am able to express with reasoning the implications that will impact on the market reaction to PFO...
I did not realize the implications of how "political" the mmorpg player market is in it's reactions and grapevine of mmorpgs, if you're making these thinigs. I always viewed this as "excessively high whinging levels in this genre" which is probably true, but atst to treat the broad range of players like political voters to capture, that is the way to get the right feedback on making a mmorpg succeed. Ryan pointed out they've done no marketing but I think the problem is there is already a constituency of players who are against PFO because it's core market has not been convinced.
I feel like you have a lot of good ideas Avena, though due to their length they might be better expressed as a sound file or video. Lol
Yeah I'm really sorry about that to anyone/everyone. Appreciate how deathly dull and counter-productive wall of text is to successful communiation.
If I had time it would be worth compiling all the ideas into summary article for creating "the next really big virtual world, after EVE".
The factors I'm seeing that make Crowfunded titles succesful
I think your observations match here: The Crowfall Budget Question
Interestingly I read a quote in a forum elsewhere:-
Can't remember where I heard the interview, but it was a Blizzard designer talking about how in WoW they first made just the hero, the mobs, and some minimal content and messed with it until the act of killing monsters alone was fun. Quests, exploration, lore, social interaction was all built on top of the fact that the basic mechanics were viscerally satisfying.
The question of whether your core loop is fun or not is a question you should return to over and over again.
There's selection bias because I'm looking for this, but it holds true for the EQ/WOW Engine mmorpgs which I'm going to include Crowfall and EQN in. Like the article concerning the gravitational pull dynamic of WOW changing into a Black Hole from newer mmorpgs siphoning off it's energy!
Now turning around coming back once again to this thread's subject and again using a comment from a forum elsewhere to use to illustrate the point and distinction being made:-
If you do your MMO right, you don't need an AI for this. Players will fill the roles. Provide the right incentives and I guarantee players will stay in town and RP an innkeeper instead of fighting monsters. First key mistake many MMOs make is assume everyone is interested primarily in combat, with perhaps a hobby or two of crafting.
From these 3 observations:-
1. PvP and political market
2. Combat and Core gameplay loop quality
3. Game Design Focus of player interactions
These are the major areas that PFO I think is going to struggle. This thread itself goes down the Pvp rabbit-hole that goes deeper and deeper.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I honestly think changing the scale then changing the Family structure at the heart of player agency on the world and other players (ie drilling back up high-levels will resolve problems at lower-levels eg pvp systems). An example of this recently casting his mind back Raph Koster's blogging on:-
TEF stands for Temporary Enemy Flagging. We knew when doing a Star Wars game that we needed to be able to account for the scenarios in the movies. This makes for a tricky problem
On top of that, we knew that PvP was, well, fatiguing. Given that we were limiting each account to having a single character (for lots of reasons, including PvP, actually), making players have to pick a side, never change, and be always vulnerable, felt like a big ask. The spirit of the game was all about changing your character up over time, and trying new things, so a system of permanent choice for PvP felt wrong.
The original proposal for a PvP system in SWG was actually something called Outcasting.
Some of this was inspired by how the late Jeff Freeman had run his UO gray shard
So it was abandoned in favor of a new system, what came to be known as Temporary Enemy Flags
The problem is, what’s the list of stuff that can trigger the flag?
On the other hand, “making mistakes with your flagging” as this quote puts it, happened all the time. Saying it was “impossible to be griefed” is just not correct.
Why was the TEF system removed?
Too many edge cases, basically. Helpful actions got to be very… subtle.
The audience is now large enough that you can make a business out of a game like that, and can feel free to alienate hundreds of thousands of players. But when we were designing SWG, we were thinking that there were only a million MMORPG players in the entire Western world. We couldn’t target a niche that way.
Long long ago, I stated that “the future of MMOs is ‘PvP'” and I think I was absolutely right. But my point was that there are many ways of putting players into competition.
Notably SWG also uses what again I'm calling the EQ/WOW Engine. He actually hits the key words/groups:-
* Single Character - single account
* PvP is one form of competition
* Aligning story and mechanics (unity of aesthetic)
* The rabbit-hole of PvP corner/edge cases...
* Estimating what the market could currently cope with
All these lessons are pertinent to the thread subject by the OP. I think that is very clear. Now to extend the conversation in the direction I think has a future:-
Here's Raph Koster on Jedis and SWG and let's get a solution for this for once and for all:-
You see, Jedi are an immense attractant to players, readers, viewers.
Except that of course, you quickly realize that by comparison, everyone else sucks.
— and trying to figure out what the heck to do with Jedi.
We would offer a Jedi system that effectively gave a different way to play the game. A method that kept Jedi rare, powerful, and yet allowed everyone a shot.
Every player would have a special character slot available to them, distinct and parallel from their regular character. This character would be locked into one profession, one class: Jedi. They’d start out weak as a kitten though, untrained in combat or anything, and with barely any Force abilities at all. Luke without womprat-shooting experience maybe.
=
Professions fell out. The designer who was doing the skill trees couldn’t manage to lick the problem of trees that were of varying sizes and interconnected in unique ways; originally, the trees were all different, and there were “surprise” professions that might appear if you mastered two skills from disparate professions, more like a skill web.
There's some really important lessons Raph has "seen almost / almost seen":-
* A real Hero = rare, powerful, popular
* He almost designed a special character slot for this role (!see Family System)
* The skill-training tree became very complex and unwieldy = eternal balance issues as well as of course immortal character bloat problems
I think I've given the correct answers to 2nd, 3rd points. The first point on Jedi, here's the answer and it's going to be built on the RTS-Scale Family-System Engine I proposed for PKO (PFO!):-
* Paladin is the equivalent of Jedi.
* Limited proportions per Realm
* Huge Family influence can only access this special class
* Throw in the alignment choices specific to PFO
* Requires high development of associated deities to make the possibility activated
* The Families themselves are high LG in their cumulative score of all their character's actions is social progression + merit system progression
Bingo: You have an uber hero with special powers: Who is mortal too.
Again Bigger Families ties into higher sub fees for initial chance to access higher influence and growth of these families to influence the realm (ties into payment/pricing system). A lot of Roles could be developed/deployed in this approach.
Obviously the role of the Paladin Char is super-do-goodin' with special powers (and a penchant against undead if got that right). A major PvP enforcer/arbiter etc in the realm. The good deeds probably even power some supernatural temple thing too etc...
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Goblin Squad Member
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In Fallen Earth there was a self-PVP flagging system. For many it became the culture of the game that you flagged up anytime your group formed up. Solo characters were not expected to flag.
The culture was largely based on meta "street cred", since the server really boiled down to faction warfare and sometimes even intra faction disputes (usually within the Outlaw Biker, Travelers and Chota factions).
Those unwilling or caught not flagging when it was expected, were publically ridiculed as cowards. I bore witness to one incident of assassination of a club leader and his girlfriend over such an incident.
This meta system worked and created, in my opinion, the best game community (that fit the setting perfectly) I have ever experienced in an MMO.
If I recall correctly, there was a timer "warning" before someone became PVP active, and one (several minutes) after you disabled PVP flag. You could not log out until the PVP flag had expired.
The "warning" was so other PVP flagged individuals would have some notice that you were joining the fight. The delay in being able to log off, obviously was meant to prevent combat logging.
Respawn had an invulnerability period, and death automatically unflagged you for PVP. If you voluntarily reflagged, it broke your invulnerability.
The only problem with this system was that there was no way to tell if someone was still invulnerable and even though you could hit them, they would take no damage. In big battles you might be attacking someone you could not hurt, taking your attention away from someone you might.
The players fixed this by not having big battles near respawn sites, or by having a "spotter" identify returnees from respawn, so buddies would not target until after timer was over.
I really wish Lee Hammock had just brought the PVP Flagging and Faction system over from Fallen Earth, if not mechanically at least in concept. The same actually goes for FE's crafting system, which was rated in the top 5 of all time.. http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2rc85?Congratulations-Lee-Hammock#1
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Goblin Squad Member
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I cannot read all of your post material Avena, but I can tell you that Darkfall hasn't (and will probably never) have a huge sub base BECAUSE of its PvP system.
I think more likely because of its grind for Prowess (experience points).
Its PVP system was really quite simple. When you left the safe zone, you were not safe. The best harvesting sites, were not in the safe zones. But if you were content with just crafting, you could remain in the safe zone if you chose to, only vulnerable if you were actively at war.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I cannot read all of your post material Avena, but I can tell you that Darkfall hasn't (and will probably never) have a huge sub base BECAUSE of its PvP system.I think more likely because of its grind for Prowess (experience points).
Its PVP system was really quite simple. When you left the safe zone, you were not safe. The best harvesting sites, were not in the safe zones. But if you were content with just crafting, you could remain in the safe zone if you chose to, only vulnerable if you were actively at war.
I'm referring to the twitch base. Sorry, I definitely was not clear.
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The one thing that I really worried about with PFO was that they were trying to please two demographics that were pretty much totally opposed to each other. The PnP crowd tended to see PvP as a "necessary evil" at best, and one they hoped to avoid. Some lingered and fought anyways, some left or failed to be active (such as myself), and some simply stay in the game and continue to do their best, both in play and in crowdforging, to avoid having to deal with fighting other players. They wanted PvE and crafting/gathering, and that's what they got. And currently, that's all we got.
I feel like the PnP demographic just didn't transfer well to Fantasy EVE, for multiple reasons. I think Goblinworks tried to please everyone and ended up pleasing few.
I cannot read all of your post material Avena, but I can tell you that Darkfall hasn't (and will probably never) have a huge sub base BECAUSE of its PvP system.I think more likely because of its grind for Prowess (experience points).
Its PVP system was really quite simple. When you left the safe zone, you were not safe. The best harvesting sites, were not in the safe zones. But if you were content with just crafting, you could remain in the safe zone if you chose to, only vulnerable if you were actively at war.
If Darkfall removed most or all of the barrier to entry and added a slight amount of aim assist or more AoE abilities (Think SMITE) it's probably what I'd be playing right now. So I think both of you have an element of truth to what you are saying.
I think even with those changes though there are third age MMOs coming out that I would eventually leave it for.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Those unwilling or caught not flagging when it was expected, were publically ridiculed as cowards. I bore witness to one incident of assassination of a club leader and his girlfriend over such an incident.
I hope you are speaking of the assassination of their in game characters.
As there have been a few instances of real life assassinations linked to games it is not completely clear if you are speaking of RL or an in game event.|
Goblin Squad Member
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Those unwilling or caught not flagging when it was expected, were publically ridiculed as cowards. I bore witness to one incident of assassination of a club leader and his girlfriend over such an incident.
I hope you are speaking of the assassination of their in game characters.
As there have been a few instances of real life assassinations linked to games it is not completely clear if you are speaking of RL or an in game event.
Their characters Diego. :-)
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Goblin Squad Member
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I cannot read all of your post material Avena, but I can tell you that Darkfall hasn't (and will probably never) have a huge sub base BECAUSE of its PvP system.
I appreciate anyone read any of the posts, so thank you very much and taking the time to respond secondly, too. I think the combat quality itself and the actual context for that quality ie other player opponents > AI is what made DF + sandbox open-ness successful.
What created a glass-ceiling is: Lack of polish and performance at launch months and then the inevitable ceiling with FFA PvP as the good are driven out by the bad and the ugly so to speak. Tharak is right, Mount & Blade, Deliverance Kingdom (solo player) visceral experience of a fantasy world with fewer players + sandbox or open worldness is going to succeed (see WOW combat core loop quote above). The other area is the hybrid of other genres, Total War is making a warhammer mod from the RTS pov and FPS is of course as above.
One of the reasons I believe the RTS Scale is necessary fit for PFO, is not only the derivation from story, but also the "fit" for Pathfinder PnP/TT players matches too; with wider RP roles and Sim Life in large social network structures. Heroes are the Paladin above (rare Jedi equivalent and massive talking point pull feature) or the Legendary Generals ie PvP genuis tacticians who command the armies in battle and the fates of realms in their hands. Again players can feel like real heroes with their archetype classes going off on party adventures for fame and honour and harder and harder PvE dungeons - free of PvP.
I really wish Lee Hammock had just brought the PVP Flagging and Faction system over from Fallen Earth, if not mechanically at least in concept.
[Preamble]Sounds interesting, the good result is the outline of systems then players organically veer in a direction and that gets reinforced by the devs over time tweeking with feedback? The way I'd do is sandboxing PvP into discrete containers then working on Flag Systems within each "sandboxed environment" so for example using the RTS Engine (aka Scale + Family System) you have Realms separated by large wilderness. This means the development can go ahead of multiple settlement types from small farmstead aka holdings, to local fortressed settlements aka Holdfasts to Strongholds aka city regional centers with loads of builds and peasant families working here.[/PREAMBLE]
So with this each Family in the Realm sorta depends on their neighbours and the Fielty System but it's "intra-competition" to progress Families upwards so economically successful via harvesting/gathering then selling/processing/trading but % to direct overlord ie tax then that overlord has (larger Family (combo of sub and social progress in players) has to raise some of their chars as Soldiers who are levied by the higher lord still eg the Local Holdfast etc upwards to the realm.
So you have politicing and positioning going on. There's your conflict and cooperation atst. Now on PvP which is combat conflict sub- the sandboxes come in. Soldiers or Guards can kill bandits who are banished characters from the realm or other realms and flagged for PvP. Those bandits can't trade, they can only get what they make and take. Basically that would be one sandbox version you could add various flags too. Chars might have bandits because they could if enough of them and good actually make a big killing and then they can give those gains to the family or black market them off etc.
* So for example Adventurers would be either immune from bandits in PvE adventures or indeed much more powerful and make mince meat if attacked by bandits.
* Another thing, Bounty-Hunters would be rare chars that hunt bandits so there's always an interesting dynamic of many bandits to few bounty-hunters and of course that cat-and-mouse.
* The other sandbox would be the RTS armies and battles and under various Treaty flag sytem for starting and ending. High level of politics.
* So I think flags can work but they need to be sandboxed into containers for specific contexts. Is the concept idea. Quick egs above.
To clarify: With this system, it's deliberately NOT CLEAR which characters will be profitable and it depends on proportionality and conditions. This is the created by having a large cast of characters that any Family could invest in (more options for the Bigger Families who pay more sub and also need more social progress (in part by having more chars and more char options flexibility). Sometimes investing in chars will be a dead duck other times safe call and so on, but after each generation and mortality these decisins are being renewed and investments are being decided upon and acting upon via player experience and changeable conditions/circumstances and needs (social position). The Bandit might be a waste but then it could lead to a big economic gain too... The PvP however is sandboxed within these conditionals; the actual combat itself can be fairly simple, it's the context and decisions that make it rewarding and risky = and the players that organically make it happen or via their own actions peter out from time to time.
The one thing that I really worried about with PFO was that they were trying to please two demographics that were pretty much totally opposed to each other. The PnP crowd tended to see PvP as a "necessary evil" at best, and one they hoped to avoid. Some lingered and fought anyways, some left or failed to be active (such as myself), and some simply stay in the game and continue to do their best, both in play and in crowdforging, to avoid having to deal with fighting other players. They wanted PvE and crafting/gathering, and that's what they got. And currently, that's all we got.
I feel like the PnP demographic just didn't transfer well to Fantasy EVE, for multiple reasons. I think Goblinworks tried to please everyone and ended up pleasing few.
I think the digital mmorpg market was the intended market, the PnP market just not either transferable or big enough? If so, I think politically this is a mistake and philosophically too. The way to rectify this I believe is to take the Archetype Class System of Pathfinder at the RTS Scale and include under the 4th Pillar of "Adventure" immune to PvP because PvP is sandboxed into containers. The concept would have to be changed for their purpose in the game:-
1. Vast Wilderness Exploration: What I'd do is make other characters easily die in the Wilderness and leave it to the Party of Adventurers for PvE here eg Monster slaying (various alignments) and long time away from civilization with specialists living out here:-
A. Barbarian Settlements (different culture)
B. Rangers guiding others out here (some skill thing to do this)
C. Druids extracting info out here.
Literally without roads it's almost no-go (you're ripped apart by some horror of a monster) or can't-go (too slow impassable, run out of food and rations and die).
2. Dungeons: Here the roguelike style is employed with systems from Torchbearer / Darkesest Dungeon but roguelike party style and of course mortality is par for the course.
The link up is some sort of honour for the family if they're successful to boost their social position and possibly some magics are needed to fuel some sort of building eg temple or other in the realm for some super function eg magical defense or dragon rearing - you name it... At this scale you do the old tile-set vision and the combat system tree could be worked on over time in isolation too for TT or whatever it is that fits PF players ideas about this best some computer version of d20...
But again it's sandboxed in it's own system.
* No PvP
* Full Class Party System
* Dungeon runs
* WIlderness Exploration and hanging out adventures
* Link in with Family and Realm functions for Family's to make investing here worth it (fun and progression).
* Mortality ensures match of investment of chars fits risk and reward.
Big Take Home: Reconcile Pathfinders Roots and community with new digitial overlay of the KINGMAKER CAMPAIGN of Exploration (some overlap) Development and Domination.
And there's a design upside to sandboxing this system too: The combat system can be more complex, more balanced and more directly transferable given the matching context it's intended to be designed for - the complex multi-class tree and exp bloat of vets nightmare is removed!
Secondly and equally important to state: You know wormholes are a success because they allow chars in EVE to do their own thing at that scale of small party/solo. Same with Adventurers who are especial proportionally rare chars anyway or should be!!!!
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Goblin Squad Member
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To elaborate on the PvE in the Wilderness...
(Brendan Drain) For a PvE-only MMO, the cost of rapidly developing new zones, monsters, quests, and items could be prohibitive as players will complete the content in a fraction of the time it took to build. Developers could spend months working on a new dungeon and players can have it cleared within a day of release. Guild Wars 2 has made a fair attempt at this with its Living Story, though we don’t know how expensive that is and what the return on investment looks like for ArenaNet. And RuneScape has similarly been able to deploy frequent content updates over the years, but only because its simpler graphics and gameplay allow for more rapid content development than other MMOs. I guess the short answer on why nobody’s made a PvE-only MMO is probably that PvP is very cost-effective and repeatable content and that tacking it onto any functional PvE game is a good business decision.
(Bryana Royce) But MMO PvE has grown stale, so developers are looking in new directions. If I want a pure PvE combat game, a single-player RPG is probably going to do it better anyway. Large-scale PvP, on the other hand, is something MMOs and only MMOs do well, so it only makes sense that new developers are turning to it as a way to revitalize the genre.
(Eliot Lefebvre) Sure, EVE Online does it, but EVE also makes it possible for you to play large chunks of the game in relative safety and with little threat of PvP conflict; if you go out into nullsec, you’re taking a voluntary risk. So it’s be more fair to say that only a small percentage of players want to do everything in the game with the constant specter of looming PvP.
This is what Ryan and GW team have been talking about.
However I think a revision is in order for PFO:-
Eliot points out the EVE idea of safe space. I think this is valid for PvE and the idea I propose is the PvE Wilderness around the "Realms Galaxies" Map Scale I mentioned in the other thread.
Instead these should be thick with monsters and escalation mobs and their own routines that are death for characters unless they're adventurers or lots of guards too beating these things back. No PvP.
Royce goes on how large-scale PvP is MMO and that's the RTS Battles Armies scale of PvP via Treaties.
The bit to come to is the Drain statements: Now here's the interesting part, the Wilderness regions which are not secured with outposts or roads (the way to get to them) these are procedurally generated and randomly re-generated from time to time with devs adding new/different landscape (same biome) dungeons, mobs and other pitfalls and interesting things - as well as being a really large wilderness in total. This design is already being used in both CU and Crowfall to an extent. I'm fairly sure I recommended here long before they announced their plans. ;-)
This is the PvE component of the game and the major PvP is the battles. With excpetional Pvp thrown in in "sandboxed containers" to elaborate over time with flag systems.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I come into this concept from Kingdoms of Camelot and other team games (sorry, do not recall names). These were teams of max 100 who would develop their "kingdom (much like developing character) and take on other teams. Maybe that is my naive view of GW, based upon my past. But they speak to settlement vs settlement play. Not individual play, but teams of individuals.
I think that is still there. That is something Bluddwolf, Andius, Nihimon, Cheatle, Decius and not addressed. The question is how I bring my General into this game now, when it is not there, yet.
This is about generals. But it is not stable enough , yet.
I came to this game to kill and be killed and honestly I'm feeling so not attacked right now.
Goblinworks Executive Founder
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I come into this concept from Kingdoms of Camelot and other team games (sorry, do not recall names). These were teams of max 100 who would develop their "kingdom (much like developing character) and take on other teams. Maybe that is my naive view of GW, based upon my past. But they speak to settlement vs settlement play. Not individual play, but teams of individuals.
I think that is still there. That is something Bluddwolf, Andius, Nihimon, Cheatle, Decius and not addressed. The question is how I bring my General into this game now, when it is not there, yet.
This is about generals. But it is not stable enough , yet.
Bring your general into the game now, and start working your way up. I would be surprised if the ones that started now took as long to get to where the ones who started three years ago are now.
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Goblin Squad Member
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There's a PvP vid here Pathfinder Online - PvP+ by Nivia Rey
From Golgotha.
It does not look bad, a bit of polish lacking in the animations, but it does look very "samey" as previous mmorpgs I already played. The objects are like a playground where you can jump on top of to gain height and players float and bounce around. This all happened in other mmorpgs too. The graphics are nice and the skill-bar looks good too. I don't like the crescent moon gui on the characters at all.
I think the idea for combat is like a deck of cards you choose your build. It's a good idea, but the above combat just looks like previous mmorpgs. What I'd suggest is instead of skills for combat being like choosing a deck of cards, you have a Family which then means when you play a role that's the card from the deck you play. What is potentially quite interesting is that at marriage you exchange "cards/characters" potentially add a skill-trained char that you did not have who can augment skill-training for the next gen chars - as well as random generation of stats for next gen perhaps with some bonus if the family specializes over a few generations in some skill-training etc. The interesting thing is mortality makes losing a card a genuine loss albeit with PvP more controlled it's not plagued by the griefer issues.
It's also recoverable after a generation regen of new chars.
Other forms of PvP for chars to "earn a buck" from:-
* Tournies
* Gladiatorial contests
* Kidnapping and Ransom of characters / slaving
* Bandits-Guards in the wild on caravans only but not in realms ie between
* Barbarians creating their own settlements in the wild wilds FFA PvP community
* Bounty-Hunters, Privateers, Assassins under special circumstances: Rare
* Civil War feuds and Armies at War declaration between Realms
* Alignment/Religious PvP if chosen
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Goblin Squad Member
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Bring your general into the game now, and start working your way up. I would be surprised if the ones that started now took as long to get to where the ones who started three years ago are now.I come into this concept from Kingdoms of Camelot and other team games (sorry, do not recall names). These were teams of max 100 who would develop their "kingdom (much like developing character) and take on other teams. Maybe that is my naive view of GW, based upon my past. But they speak to settlement vs settlement play. Not individual play, but teams of individuals.
I think that is still there. That is something Bluddwolf, Andius, Nihimon, Cheatle, Decius and not addressed. The question is how I bring my General into this game now, when it is not there, yet.
This is about generals. But it is not stable enough , yet.
A settlement of 100 characters could not possibly have the influence to be viable longterm.
My impression is "small" but viable settlements are going to be 300 to 1000 characters more or less and Kingdoms, when implemented, will be substantially bigger again.
The closest to the sort of dynamic you are talking about will be company versus company feuds. That and faction war.
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Goblin Squad Member
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You miss the lesson. If one is limited to one hundred one learns how to wisely deploy. If you can have more, …. But I am not ready to bring in this leader. Like others he still has too young family. Ultimately it does not matter much what level his alt is. That will be true with other strategic players.
The biggest settlements do not deploy PvP anywhere near their size. 3 settlement claim 1/6 of the field of play.
They have a quarter of the players, but how many are PvP under the terms of settlement warfare.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Lam, please, check your data before posting. EBA is 5 settlements:
Brighthaven, Phaeros, Keeper's Pass, Hammerfall and Blackwood Glade.It is like your previous clam that we have have claimed 1/4 of the map. Imprecise and misleading.
I think Andius believes that EBA is just Brighthaven and the other settlements are all now TEO alts :D
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Goblinworks Executive Founder
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Lam, please, check your data before posting. EBA is 5 settlements:
Brighthaven, Phaeros, Keeper's Pass, Hammerfall and Blackwood Glade.It is like your previous clam that we have have claimed 1/4 of the map. Imprecise and misleading.
I think Andius believes that EBA is just Brighthaven and the other settlements are all now TEO alts :D
Don't be silly.
We're all Blaeringr's alts.