Pathfinder Online has been one of the games that has garnered a lot of attention over the past several months as being a sandbox title to watch. We managed to catch up to Goblinworks CEO Ryan S. Dancey to talk about Pathfinder Online. See what he's got to say about this ground breaking title.

MMORPG: Pathfinder is one of the top RPGs out right now in the tabletop world. What is it like for Goblinworks to bring this game into the online universe?

Ryan S. Dancey: I have such a sense of pride about Pathfinder.  A lot of people don't know this, but when Lisa Stevens (Paizo Publishing's CEO) and I were working at Wizards of the Coast, we wrote a lengthy 10-year plan for the Dungeons & Dragons business.  After we both left, Wizards decided to pursue a different path.  With Pathfinder, Lisa is following our original plan and having huge success.  So I feel like a happy uncle to everything that Paizo has accomplished - watching them make history has been one of the highlights of my life.

We approach Pathfinder with a deep sense of the love and community that Paizo has created.  Pathfinder isn't something that can be treated cavalierly.  Every decision we make about the game is debated and discussed with a panel of Paizo's top leadership, and we give the entire Paizo staff numerous opportunities to see what we're working on and give us comments and feedback.

Read more of Garrett Fuller's Pathfinder Online: A Sense of Pride.

Not impressed by the graphics and character models. In the second to last screenshot on page 1, the 2 female characters in particular look really bad. Just my opinion of course.

That said, the game as such sounds very interesting, will keep an eye out for it for sure.

I've been following Pathfinder Online since the Tech demo kickstarter, and the project does indeed look -very- interesting. However, I am not willing to pay a sub just yet, especially for beta (which was their plan - release beta and make it require a sub.)

Even though they've gone too far from P&P in terms of combat, their own system looks kind of interesting with the ideas of these action points, or whatever they called it.

My concern with this game is that it already looks terribly dated visualy, and they plan to release it on 2015. Other than that sounds good, at least on paper.

Oh, and Lisa Stevens looks scary O_o

I worry that talk of "meaningful player interaction" is playing just a little too coy about the question of the role of PvP.

I like the sound of the features so backed the on kinkcstarter.. most of the work you see graphics wise is pretty early on..

Unity is not the best engine on the market but they just brought in DX11 support and it can be made to look pretty good...

The sadest part of the interview for me was "After the Elder Scrolls Online project releases, there are no large AAA Theme Park MMOs under development at any significant publisher or studio."

The Elder Scrolls Online.....Theme Park.....A sentence containing those 2 phrases just makes me cry...

Oh but the game does look really promising if it can get enough support.

• Player-Player Contracts - replace quests

• Player formed factions - all/any eg as per EVE

• Skill-Training Progression -> 2.5yrs to max level earliest in x1 role only; horizontal progress

• Player created settlements -> Each Hex (256) can be conquered and controlled

• Player formed Armies -> Real formations

• Virtual Economy -> full-blown autonomous economy (not simulated)

• Player Crafting item production and PvE Resource Cycle (maj. item creation by players)

• Career Skills as well as Combat Skills (bounty-hunter, bandit, diplomat, tavern owner, soldier, trader...)

• Alignment, Reputation, Politics & Open-World PvP (EVE style again)

• NPC Alliances (changes which mobs are friend/foe)

• Single-server World map - all emergent game story is shared by all players

Originally posted by MumboJumbo

This is one company (Goblin Works) with the right roots and right approach: Churning out tons of info on the goblin works blogs: Very impressed. I like how they are taking inspirations in key areas from EVE, Runescape and World of Tanks for eg and various other innovations. A quick summary:

• Player-Player Contracts - replace quests

• Player formed factions - all/any eg as per EVE

• Skill-Training Progression -> 2.5yrs to max level earliest in x1 role only; horizontal progress

• Player created settlements -> Each Hex (256) can be conquered and controlled

• Player formed Armies -> Real formations

• Virtual Economy -> full-blown autonomous economy (not simulated)

• Player Crafting item production and PvE Resource Cycle (maj. item creation by players)

• Career Skills as well as Combat Skills (bounty-hunter, bandit, diplomat, tavern owner, soldier, trader...)

• Alignment, Reputation, Politics & Open-World PvP (EVE style again)

• NPC Alliances (changes which mobs are friend/foe)

• Single-server World map - all emergent game story is shared by all players

 

 

That sounds all very intresting.  However the contracts, settlements and armies sound like one of those ambitious features that many MMOs with big developement teams (which the worst companies like Funcom are likey leaps and bounds better that kickstarter ones like this) promised also but then never delivered.

Something to keep on the radar but certainly am not going to inverst especially since they are charging a sub for friggin beta access.  If they are going to charge a sub then it better be close to a finished product and not some freebie testers for em that they can make testers pay.

Still intrested what the virtual economy is all about.  Not gonna go reading up on it at their site so if anyone would give me a down n dirty be much obliged.

I was getting excited until mention of the cash shop. That's a no go for me. To the Devs on this game, you can have a winner, but cash shops are a big hit to "fairness" and game world mechanics, especially economic.

The other issue I had earlier when checking out this game was that there evidently won't be any permanent dungeons? All instanced to a character discovery, then just goes away after it's "used up".

It is easy to talk about a feature list, it is much harder to implement such.  Kickstarting any company is a real crap shoot.  I have yet to any of these so called great sandbox games that really gets what a sandbox is.  My suggestion is to take a wait and see attitude on a game like this until we actually get information from people actually play testing it.

Must have had a significant brainfart to spout this nonsense: "After the Elder Scrolls Online project releases, there are no large AAA Theme Park MMOs under development at any significant publisher or studio. 

Titan and EQnext come to mind as AAA titles, you can bet  there are others unannounced.  This guy sounds like a snake oil salesman.  He can talk the talk, but can he walk the walk.   I have my doubts.

Oh and paying to beta test is just a real indication of bad intentions.   I do not trust companies that ask you to pay to test their software, should be the other way around.

They have 225k to go I don't think they are going to make this in 3 days and poof there goes 750k in funds.

Originally posted by BlackUhuru
@Ozmodan

We have no idea what Titan is or will be, and EQnext was scrapped as a Themepark and announced as completely redoing it as a sandbox style game.

Name a AAA themepark title after Elder Scrolls in development? Not one and for good reason!
 

Excuse me, you just named two AAA titles.