Pathfinder MMO

[Bunk]

Though they did recently release a "Beginners" Box Set, which is targeted for getting people new to RPGs in to the genre by keeping things simpler. Might be worth a look. Reviews of it have been quite good.

[Mrbloodworth]

That's what I have been looking at, asked for it for x-mass, especially for the pre-made character sheets with all the markup on the side. Still, For me, and anyone ill be playing with, stopping to do tons of math just kills the fun.

[Goumindong]

The most complicated math you're likely to have to do is adding numbers and checking the result.

The setup is often complicated, but that is because it is difficult to have a game be reasonably balanced and still have a simple system to create abilities.

I think that the base 4e (not sure about essentials or the starter box) is pretty serviceable in this regard so long as you are using pre-created adventures.

Level/2 + ability score + bonuses is pretty much everything you have to know.

[Fordel]

Essentials is still using the same underlying math, they just dramatically reduce power selection decisions.

[UnSub]

Ways to ensure that only 4500 players a month are interested:

Corpse runs, possible inventory loss on death, player-driven justice system, need to be part of a strong guild to survive.

[Mrbloodworth]

Ok. No thanks. With those features, you will only likely get High school age users, or those that peaked in highschool.

Also, why do people think they can use those features yet follow up with this:

One thing that we're deeply committed to at Goblinworks is building a game that has a low tolerance for "griefing."

Those features ATTRACT the very people you want to stop. You are courting Griefers with those features, and you know it.

An example is a group who attacks and kills trespassers in a certain area to deny access to that territory to other players.

Whats the point of your goddam game then if you do not allow this!   

[HaemishM]

Ways to ensure that only 4500 players a month are interested:

Corpse runs, possible inventory loss on death, player-driven justice system, need to be part of a strong guild to survive.

Translation: We haven't learned a goddamn thing from almost 13 years of released MMOG's. We are steadfastly committed to making the same fucking mistakes over and over again until our game is full of shitheels and crotchpheasants!

[shiznitz]

That is the initial EQ2 "soft" corpse looting system.  There is a reason they removed it after less than a year.  I wonder how this mechanic will deal with quest turn in items?  No way they let those poof.  What about bind-on-equip items?  I see this being softening to the point of simply a travel tax pretty quickly.

And the "we miss UO" section:

If you attempt to heal or buff characters who are in the act of attacking others, even if you are not a member of the same group or social organization as those you're healing, you'll be subject to the same penalties as the criminals you've chosen to associate with. Likewise, if you debuff, dispel, or banish assets of characters engaged in PvP, you'll be tagged with the same penalties as those your targets are fighting if they should die. In both cases, you'll make yourself a legitimate target for retribution during the fight—your opponents won't become criminals by acting to stop you from aiding their enemies.

Because the criminal system in UO was so successful at stopping griefing...

[Nebu]

Ways to ensure that only 4500 players a month are interested:

Corpse runs, possible inventory loss on death, player-driven justice system, need to be part of a strong guild to survive.

Make that 4501.  I like these kinds of things.  It encourages me to play a class that is competitive naked.

[Malakili]

Your character will re-enter play at the soulbinding point holding and wearing whatever gear they had equipped when they died, so you won't have to start without your armor, or the weapons, wands, or staves you were using. However, until you return to your husk, you are in danger of losing the rest of your inventory. If you get to your husk before anyone else, you'll be able to get all your stuff back. However, if another player finds your husk before you do, they'll be able to loot it. They won't recover everything that you had in your inventory—just a random selection—but the rest of your inventory will be destroyed and removed from the game. If you die surrounded by allies, they can't just pick up all of your equipment for you, as doing so would cause some of it to be removed from the game, but your allies could attempt to defend your husk until you return to it, so that you lose nothing but travel time.

I'm not particularly against item loss, but this might be the worst implementation of it I've seen.

[shiznitz]

The DIKU loot model most of us grew up on (i.e. random rewards for loot requiring a /ran function in the game to decide who gets what) had some basis at least in human psychology (eg. gambling) but twisting that into random punishment (i.e. losing the cool loot item you just won because 4a$r4p3r looter won the lotto looting your corpse) is beyond daft.

BTW, here is his LinkedIn profile if you care enough to tell him he is batshit crazy.

http://www.linkedin.com/in/rsdancey

[UnSub]

Ways to ensure that only 4500 players a month are interested:

Corpse runs, possible inventory loss on death, player-driven justice system, need to be part of a strong guild to survive.

Translation: We haven't learned a goddamn thing from almost 13 years of released MMOG's. We are steadfastly committed to making the same fucking mistakes over and over again until our game is full of shitheels and crotchpheasants!

A lot of MMO devs have apparently never met a MMO player, or somehow think that the min/max tactics a dev might use when they play would never be used by anyone else.

Nebu's almost correct - I don't think that your character loses what they are wearing, just what they have in their inventory. Player solution: wear the best weapons and armour you can possibly afford and carry almost nothing expensive in your inventory.

Should the game ever launch, the first in will potentially have a huge advantage over those who come next, particularly if a guild can set up territorial control over key areas early. Not sure how many players from wave 4 will accept an introduction of, "Welcome to Pathfinder! The Empire demands its tithe; enjoy meeting the gank squad. All the good spots have already been taken too."

Now all it needs is permanent player housing that can be built wherever players can find valid land and the circle will be complete. 

[JWIV]

Ugh.  If I wanted a kick to the nuts in my gameplay  - I could just go play Vanguard again.

[Modern Angel]

Amazing.

I will say that this is mitigated by the fact that they're planning on low sub numbers. I don't think, in a post-WoW world with the jury still out on SWTOR, that indie MMOs which are designed to be very niche are the worst outcome we could have.

[Malakili]

Ugh.  If I wanted a kick to the nuts in my gameplay  - I could just go play Vanguard again.

The part that really gets me is that you can't have allies loot you without perma loss of some of the items.   I can deal with the idea of some enemy looting my corpse and therefore losing items, but it seems to me that anyone but you looting your corpse = some items get nuked is just a bad way to do it.  Give me Darkfall over that.

[Lantyssa]

The DIKU loot model most of us grew up on (i.e. random rewards for loot requiring a /ran function in the game to decide who gets what) had some basis at least in human psychology (eg. gambling) but twisting that into random punishment (i.e. losing the cool loot item you just won because 4a$r4p3r looter won the lotto looting your corpse) is beyond daft.

The real DIKU model the mobs wore or carried what you could loot.  There were even spells you could use to help pinpoint what mob had an item you were interested in.  At least with stock code.  It was EQ(?) or later that made random loot be the defacto rule.

[shiznitz]

Right and EQ set the DIKU MMO genre hard on that random loot drop course. As annoying as it was to get on a list to have a chance to roll on the FBSS, it was strangely compelling.  Until it wasn't.

[Fordel]

I've never found random loot compelling and the fact so many people seem to like it drives me a little mad.

[Mrbloodworth]

I don't think anyone likes it.

[Ingmar]

I don't think anyone likes it.

Millions of Diablo players disagree.

[Mrbloodworth]

Completely different i think. I don't like a 1/20 chance of getting a _____ paw. For example. I also do not like getting an item I can't use ( Loved WAR for this ). What I do not mind is random item looks, stats and slots. That's fine. Maybe I misunderstood what you guys were talking about.

[Ingmar]

An SoJ is an SoJ, and your chances of getting one are far more random than most everything in an MMO.

[shiznitz]

Completely different i think. I don't like a 1/20 chance of getting a _____ paw. For example. I also do not like getting an item I can't use ( Loved WAR for this ). What I do not mind is random item looks, stats and slots. That's fine. Maybe I misunderstood what you guys were talking about.

I wasn't referring so much to "type of item" randomness, but the kill the mob and "who the hell knows if he will drop anything this time" randomness. 

[Ratman_tf]

Ways to ensure that only 4500 players a month are interested:

Corpse runs, possible inventory loss on death, player-driven justice system, need to be part of a strong guild to survive.

Awesome! I was afraid it was going the WoW clone route, and we'd have nothing to talk about. 

[Kageru]

Random loot is fine. It's a design balance to extend content at a cost in repetition / tedium if you overdo it. It meant that when you saw a named mob in an EQ dungeon you got excited at what you might get, if you saw the item on the corpse you felt a burst of happiness. Worked especially well in EQ where sitting around killing mobs for XP was the regular game-play. For a low budget game, which I assume this is, it's probably almost mandatory.

We're certainly at a dry patch in MMO's though.

[Trippy]

I don't think anyone likes it.

You would be wrong. Google "Partial Reinforcement Extinction Effect" (PREE).

[lamaros]

So very dumb. I take back all my earlier comments. They have no idea what they are doing at all.

[UnSub]

A look at their staff page seems to indicate a heavy ex-CCP presence.

[Khaldun]

I think this is great. Look, if you're going to start an MMO that nobody gives a shit about anyway, in a market where MMO failure is nearly a given, in a game structure that doesn't work whether you spend $100 or $100 million, what's the only use of having a product? Helping to serve as confirmatory sociological evidence that the jerkoff 9th grade misanthrope braying on general chat in a more carebear product is in fact part of an excrutiatingly tiny fraction of humanity that no one would miss if their keyboards electrocuted them while playing this game.

[UnSub]

If the Collector's Edition comes with an electrocuting keyboard, I will subscribe to this game (standard box) for at least a month.

[luckton]

This came across my news feed today.

https://goblinworks.com/blog/index.html#20120201


Bringing back the 90s must be all the rage these days 

[Montague]

This came across my news feed today.

https://goblinworks.com/blog/index.html#20120201


Bringing back the 90s must be all the rage these days 

I hope Mr. Dancey enjoys the year or two of Mark Jacobsian self promotion he's indulging in before this piece of shit is exposed at release. He's been taking credit for Monte Cook's work on 3rd edition for years when all he really did was design the OGL and write the godawful Hero Builders Guidebook. That whole blog just screams "LOOK AT ME, I IZ A GAME DESIGNERRRR!!!"

[shiznitz]

Time for a chart:

[Modern Angel]

Let's see how much money they sink into this. Niche or not, that looks like the exact wrong way to do things and it'll break an RPG publisher with a quickness if it's awful.

[Ingmar]

Well, Paizo should be safe from that at least, they don't look to be sinking any money in themselves.