Pathfinder Online

Dmitry_sl said:

I think we are on the same wavelength... this is the most innovation interesting game coming for me but I am petrified that it's too innovative for them to pull off with such a small team.

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Same. But it *must* be possible to re-create some of the things we see in a succesful game like Eve-online, to a Fantasy setting. I can not believe that Eve only works because it is in space(not saying Eve is perfect).

Goblinworks can use an I.P. that is loved by many ( I had never heard of Pathfinder, btw), they have backing by a publisher that has something to lose, they are on a lean and mean schedule, with the idea to grow the game over time and they have Ryan Dancey. A blunt but seasoned guy, who so far is still saying things I like. I personally don't give a shit about his OGL or the card-games he has supposedly ruined so I have no other beefs with the man.

His realism about what can be in the game in early stages is refreshing. It also means there is a big chance that the game will get a bad rep in these early stages, because they start while many features are not in place yet. But this approach is neccesary both from a monetary standpoint as well as the innovation aspect of it: everytime they introduce a new feature (like the Reputation system, or the first Settlement building) they need to finetune the effects. It is going to be a rough ride, and I indeed hope they manage to sit out that ride, also financially.

There is also this "crowdforging" that is supposed to be one of the pillars of the development proces: during EE players will have a say as to which systems should be prioritized for implementation. Not only when but also some say as to what extent. Not sure how that will work out but I am pretty sure that the players in EE will play a huge role in providing all the meta-data that Goblinworks will gather, for finetuning their systems.

I have to say that I have been participating on the PFO forums for almost a year now and Ryan is very involved with all the threads there. There is not a day that goes by where he does not chime in on the more important issues, in his typical blunt manner. Also a lot of expectation management which is to be expected. Some nice clashes with hardcore Eve-players too.

If you pay 100 dollars you will start out in month 2 of Early Enrollment, so only original backers will have a month of extra xp. But you can only expend a set amount of XP to a character per month, and the idea is to have a much flatter powercurve for PFO. Now a veteran character with 3 years of xp under his belt, will be a much more versatile character, since he will have been able to expend XP into many more Skills then a character of 6 months. However, they say that a character with just a few weeks of XP under his belt is already a viable character if you put it towards a single role.

Characters are not set into a specific role at charactercreation, it is the skills you "buy" with your XP that will define your role. So if you buy wizardly skills (you also sometimes need to finish achievements, next to needing xp), the abilities that belong to that will go up too (like Int). In the end you can accumulate the skills (plus attributes that underly that skill) of all the "roles" that PFO offers. This will not mean you have 40 hotbars full of shit that covers all roles.

Your equipped stuff (weapons, armors, spellbooks, Cantrips, Orisons etcetera) will be closely tied to which skills/spells you can sucessfully use; you can mix and match stuff off course but there will be synergies and bonusses for equipping to fit a certain role. You can change stuff out fairly easy as long as you are not in combat. Also keep in mind that having a full inventory of "role-specific" gear so you can swap out to fit any role, is dangerous. There is practicaully full looting in this game. You can "thread"stuff, this can not be taken from you. A newbie can pretty much thread anything he has equipped, a veteran will be able to thread less items so will have to choses the most valuable, most likely his weapon or spellbooks. At death 25% gets destroyed immediately and the remaining 75% of unthreaded stuff is up for grabs.

Also please note that pretty much everything in this game is crafted and that you will not have unique Uber weapons as you get in PvE Raid games. High-tier weapons will be costly and some will be hard to make(depending on how many and which combination of "keywords" like "Silver" , "of Vampire Slaying", "Crushing", "Bleeding" etcetera are on it, and which tier ingredients is used) but they can still all be made, given time and resources. Expect to have lots of extra sets in the bank, also expect to loot shit yourself off course.

Anyway, in this aspect there are not really levels: if you concentrate on a few skills, you can most likely train to be a dangerous fireball slinger in weeks that can actually do damage to a veteran character. You are off course not nearly as versatile and will still loses to a vet of 3 years, one on one.

Anyway, I understand your concerns and we will have to see how it works out.

Alpha is about to start, I expect them to announce something about it in the coming blog on wednesday 30th. Alpha characters get free sub for the duration of the EE but not sure if the XP they accumulate during alpha will port over to EE, good question. I do know that alpha characters will be wiped before EEQ, so I would think they start with zero xp after that.

Alpha is also not planned to take a long time: when you look at the pledge packages, you will see that the Pioneer package talks about 2nd month of enrollment being July for them, which would mean EE would start in June. That would leave 2 months of alpha at most. They have said that alpha is mostly meant to iron out stuff with account creation, xp-expenditure and such.

However, I think they are being very optimistic here and that whole alpha could very well come crashing down with bugs. I think EE will be so barebone that any player that enters EE unsuspecting will probably log out after 10 minutes, and depending on character, will either shake his head and move on, or go on his favorite forum and viciously burn down this "bugged piece of unfinished crap" to the ground.

And with "unsuspecting" I mean anyone that has not spent the last 1.5 years on the Pathfinder Online forums, did not read the 2100 Developer posts, and did not read all 718 pages of developer-blogs that are out there, explaining the game, the goal and the concept of EE and the "minimum viable product", like I did.

I think you are wise to focus on Archeage. And yes, if you are serious about entering EE at some point, it will be nice to have a good chunk of xp waiting for you, so you can start expending it and buying skills and shit (keep in mind that a lot will also require some achievements, though these will sometimes be simple). Ryan said that during EE a lot could still change, however the only ting that will be "sacrosanct is XP". Meaning that in worst case scenarios there may be rollbacks and shit, but you will never lose any XP that you payed for.

Sorry, double post.

The newest blog is about the Landrush. 3 Guilds have already been allowed to pick their spots in the Landrushmap. Things are slowly getting real, alpha soon. For the next 10 weeks other Guilds will be able to pick the spots for their settlement(second landrush).

Anyway, here is the link to the blog:Rushing the Land | Goblinworks

And here is the link to the mapthread:paizo.com - Pathfinder Online: Unofficial Pathfinder Online Map
Click on the latest map in the post from Harad.

Although that thread is called the "Unofficial Map" thread, it is actually very much the real map, but enhanced by Harad, who is just a fan. Mind you, it is a layered PDF, and takes a while to load into Adobe before you can browse it.

You will notice that 3 hexes have names under them, these are claimed by the 3 Guilds that "won" the first "landrush". Landrush being nothing more at this point then showing the biggest membership. Read the blog for how the second landrush will play out.

Yes, it is a startingpoint. Do not forget that half if not more of the game(systems) still has to implemented in that timeframe of the Early Enrollment, which runs from Fall this year till Jan 2016. If all goes well. Also, they may have those cities now, but that does not mean they get to keep them forever. Once sieging and all that stuff is in, they could lose their city just as much as the next one. Off course they will have an advantage of being dug in already, then again, who is to say the Guild does not implode by itself?

Lots of things can happen, but they need a starting point somewhere.

Landrush is a big word for what is going on now, that is why I put it in "". (well, I did that once)

Paizo Forum Alpha Pictures

PFO Alpha Abilities - Google Sheets

Two more links with some alpha pics and info on alpha weapons.

Kuriin_sl said:

Oh man...those images look really, really rough. It's nice to see that class skills are in there, though.

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True. I probably should not be doing this, since Ryan Dancey has killed so many puppies of gamers here, but this quote of him should put things in perspective somewhat. Unless he is LYING off course!

paizo.com - Pathfinder Online: First Impressions