Originally posted by Velocinox

Originally posted by tom_gore

Originally posted by Velocinox
It's really too bad that they took this really great cooperative based IP and could only come up with pairing it to yet another forgettable PVP only pure sandbox.

Sorry, where did you get this "PVP only" info? If you read their description, the game is actually focused on lots of other things aswell. They say they will discourage meaningless PvP and there are large areas that are "safe", meaning most of the PvP you will encounter will be consensual (i.e. you were looking for a fight yourself or took the risk and wandered into non-safe areas).

A lot of their ideas sound like EVE online, which in my books is a excellent design standpoint.

I actually also pledged yesterday after trying their environment demo and reading further about their design ideas.

 

I've read 'pie in the sky' game proposals before.

Sure. Of course it's just mostly words at this point. So you assume that even if the developers clearly state that they will not tolerate griefing and that they will discourage meaningless PvP, they will flip their intentions before launch and go the HTFU path with CCP?

I don't think so. Even CCP is "softening" their game patch by patch. Darkfall: UW has more safe zones than the predecessor. Why would PFO take the hardcore route, when a) other games have shown it's perhaps not working and b) the developers have already stated they want PvP to be (mostly) consent only?

Just to piss their customers off?

---

Originally posted by tom_gore
Just to piss their customers off?

---

lol, it does seem like that at times, doesn't it.

No, I don't think it will be done on purpose, but many designers shoot for something and then have to change it for financial, design, or popularity reasons.

Look at Firefall, they started as a purely coop PvE only bug hunt game with mostly quest content, then let themselves be changed by the community to first include and then be predominantly PvP oriented.

Now they are without focus and recently had a complete content re-design in an attempt to redefine their game concept.

It happens, and sometimes the CCO/CD or Lead Designer is as confused as everyone else.

Originally posted by Velocinox

 

---

Originally posted by tom_gore
Just to piss their customers off?

---

 

 

lol, it does seem like that at times, doesn't it.

No, I don't think it will be done on purpose, but many designers shoot for something and then have to change it for financial, design, or popularity reasons.

Look at Firefall, they started as a purely coop PvE only bug hunt game with mostly quest content, then let themselves be changed by the community to first include and then be predominantly PvP oriented.

Now they are without focus and recently had a complete content re-design in an attempt to redefine their game concept.

It happens, and sometimes the CCO/CD or Lead Designer is as confused as everyone else.

Well in this case we are talking about a (partly) crowdsourced game, where the developers in theory _should_ have more power over the decisions. Of course it can turn into another Darkfall - a PvP arena with nothing else to do. But even if it is like EVE, where PvP is the big bone, but you have lots of small bones too, I'm happy with it.

Originally posted by Velocinox
It's really too bad that they took this really great cooperative based IP and could only come up with pairing it to yet another forgettable PVP only pure sandbox.

The TenTonHammer interview:

Explains it well: The Rise of the Fantasy Sandbox MMO - An Exclusive Pathfinder Online Q&A

TTH: Will there be any major concessions made to help translate the Pathfinder RPG into a massive, online gaming environment, or is the goal to remain as true as possible to the original IP?

Ryan Dancey: The rules of the online game will be different than the tabletop game. The tabletop game is designed to focus on small parties of heroic adventurers. The online game is a bigger game in scope - it's a superset of the tabletop experience.

The tabletop game is built around each player having an essentially unlimited amount of real time to make decisions but the online game will operate in real time so players will not have that luxury. The tabletop game assumes there's rarely more than 10 people at a table and often less, whereas the online game will enable hundreds and eventually thousands of people to be interacting directly - and that has huge implications. These things make the tabletop rules unsuitable for online play.

The tabletop game is built around a combat engine. The online game is built around an economic engine - combat is a part of that but a subset of the whole. In the tabletop game you have lots of rules for combat and things that happen during combat like spellcasting. In the online game combat is a much smaller portion of the rules - we need rules for crafting, and exploration, and social interaction, and logistics and operating markets, etc. Since the tabletop doesn't have to worry too much about those kinds of systems we have to create much of those rules from scratch.

Originally posted by Velocinox

I go back further then UO, and for the record my forum name was mentioned specifically as one of the most passionate and dedicated fans of the game in Raph Koster's final beta address. I also have no fear of PvP, i play Planetside 2 almost obssessively.

I was also a developer on one of the most famous sandbox games of all time.

However, this is not where the money is. People have tried the world building, sandbox PvP game and it performs anemically in all but a select few cases.

There are more concepts that have been ventured lately that show promise of being both financially successful and creatively innovative without having to be a pure themepark railroad to endgame type system.

Please don't have a knee jerk reaction that I meant PFO should be WoW2, All I am saying is that there are more colors out there than just black (themepark) and white (sandbox).

 

This is exactlly why I think the sandbox background they are going for is going to work. See below, from the MMORPG interview with Ryan Dancey:

We think we're at the end of the AAA Theme Park MMO era.  After the Elder Scrolls Online project releases, there are no large AAA Theme Park MMOs under development at any significant publisher or studio.  The reason is that the business model for Theme Park MMOs doesn't work.  They cost too much to make, take too long to develop, and don't create sustainable long term businesses.

The industry looked at the outlier game (World of Warcraft) and assumed that was the baseline.  Since 2003 we've seen more than a dozen high profile MMO releases in the Theme Park category, and none of them have been able to sustain a paying player population over a million for more than 6 to 9 months.  The budgets have exploded - the average budget for those games was in excess of $100 million, and Star Wars: The Old Republic cost more than $300 million.  The economics just don't work.

Sandbox games have a different business model.  You can start them with much smaller player populations and much less content.  A Theme Park has to be nearly feature complete the day you ship it, but a Sandbox can begin with just a limited selection of functions and systems, and a small player population, and slowly iterate and grow over time.  This is what EVE Online has done, growing from 20,000 players to more than 350,000 over 10 years.

This focus on systems, rather than content, is at the heart of Pathfinder Online's plan.  We want to "maximize meaningful human interaction", and so we are focusing our efforts on interesting ways to facilitate that.  We envision a world where thousands of players are interacting constantly in economics, politics, and territorial conflict.  At the same time, thousands more players are busy exploring the world, seeking out the monsters and treasures that are hidden within it, and bringing the spoils of their adventures back home to enrich the whole ecosystem.

The longer the game runs, the more complex it will become.  The more options players will have.  The more content we'll be able to add in the form of monsters and the threats they pose to the player settlements.  Sandbox design is all about long-term thinking and constantly knitting more and more people into the story they're creating within the game world.

Originally posted by Velocinox... All I am saying is that there are more colors out there than just black (themepark) and white (sandbox).

 

Quite true. We should be reassured then that PFO is to be somewhat of a hybrid. I doubt they would let writers Ed Greenwood (Forgotten Realms), Mike Stackpole (FASA, Mechwarrior), and some nine other talented authors' creative work go to waste. Surely the Emerald Spire dungeon counts as other than pure sandbox? Surely the development of escalating PvE content will not lie fallow and unused. Certainly thirty years of creative development in RPGs will not be tossed aside? That opening on their HR site for another PvE Game Designer is undoubtedly a clue for the discerning.

Still, if you have your mind made up that reality is only as you presumed, there is surely little I can hope to do pointing out perspectives if you insist on keeping eyes closed.

---

Originally posted by BlueMountain
Still, if you have your mind made up that reality is only as you presumed, there is surely little I can hope to do pointing out perspectives if you insist on keeping eyes closed.

---

Or we can ignore the fact that the discussion so far has been respectful of others opinions and clean of insults and start taking passive/aggressive shots at each other.

After reading the interviews, watching the few videos and even trying the envrioment tech demo...I have pledge money to the cause. I am really looking forward to this game. How can we spread the good word about PFO (these acronyms just write themselves)?

Originally posted by MrJones77

After reading the interviews, watching the few videos and even trying the envrioment tech demo...I have pledge money to the cause. I am really looking forward to this game. How can we spread the good word about PFO (these acronyms just write themselves)?

There's some things of interest to different people:

1) PnP Pathfinder tie-in stuff

2) The background of the people and goblin works company (& mmorpg backgrounds eg CCP)

3) Sandbox fantasy design

So anyone in any gaming clubs or rpg/mmo/sandbox/pnp forums etc might appreciate taking a look at the ks for any of the above.

=

Update the OP:

• Pathfinder Online Interviews: A Sense of Pride - MMORPG.com
• An Interview With 'Pathfinder Online' Developer Ryan Dancey - Forbes
• Pathfinder MMO: A Chat with Ryan Dancey and Mark Kalmes of Goblinworks - enworld.org
• Videocast: Pathfinder Online discussion with Mark Kalmes - demiplaneofgaming

The MMOFTW webcast (found on this site) did a segment on PFO.  it started around minute #10 and lasted about 15 minutes or so...

They seemed to be a little confused about some items, but both really seemed to want to see the game get funded.

Last day and a half.. 84% there....  It's going to be close.