Wait, so the Pathfinder ruleset was not the inspiration, it was this building game ruleset that has the same name? Can you tell me a little of what they used from the character and combat rules of d20?
It's not just "same name" it's a module for the official Pathfinder game (made by paizo).
There is all kinds of stuff from D&D/Pathfinder in this game: races, classes, spells, feats. You name it. Main things they are changing is not having turn based combat (because it's hard to get it to work in an MMO) and buying your skills individually with XP some of which you will get even while offline (although there are still levels in the game as well). It's also much larger scale so you have settlements and towns rather than adventure parties to make best use of the massively multiplayer environment.
I don't think any of these things will really take away from the D&D/Pathfinder feel of the game too much. It's targeted at fans of the pen and paper games.
They've also talked about having player designed adventure modules like in the Neverwinter Nights games that players can design and sell and then play like "quests" in the MMO. (although that is a "far in the future" thing)
Wait, so the Pathfinder ruleset was not the inspiration, it was this building game ruleset that has the same name? Can you tell me a little of what they used from the character and combat rules of d20?
It's not just "same name" it's a module for the official Pathfinder game (made by paizo).
There is all kinds of stuff from D&D/Pathfinder in this game: races, classes, spells, feats. You name it. Main things they are changing is not having turn based combat (because it's hard to get it to work in an MMO) and buying your skills individually with XP some of which you will get even while offline (although there are still levels in the game as well). It's also much larger scale so you have settlements and towns rather than adventure parties to make best use of the massively multiplayer environment.
I don't think any of these things will really take away from the D&D/Pathfinder feel of the game too much. It's targeted at fans of the pen and paper games.
They've also talked about having player designed adventure modules like in the Neverwinter Nights games that players can design and sell and then play like "quests" in the MMO. (although that is a "far in the future" thing)
Cool, thanks for clarification. Not being in Alpha makes it hard to know some of this stuff.
MMORPG players are often like Hobbits: They don't like Adventures
I am not excited about PFO based on what I have seen so far. I don't like that they used what is basically d20 D&D for their name but didn't use any of the game systems. The graphics look bad, and the HUD on the character was a bad move imo.
Philosophically a lot of what they are doing is so very right though.
I almost want to support this game just because of the system of PvP where purposeful PvP is encouraged, but dipshit PKing is punished. True to form, the MMO bullies are the biggest crybabies. "I wanted to grief somebody and I got killed by the NPCs," makes me feel that the NPCs were the hero in that story.
The d20 systems just does not translate well, however. I think tab-target (for all it's limitation) is the appropriate skill approximation for this game that matches RPG closest.
But actually as PFO is a single world server that CONNECTS all the player-base, the combat is NOT the major emphasis or gratification of the game and hence tab-target is merely the vehicle to accomodate combat in the networking and mix of other major systems.
Ryan Dancey has mentioned:-
"More Than Just Tackles"
• Persistent structures
• Player-centric economy
• Territorial warfare
•Lots of con?ict
•PvP combat
•Competition for resources
•Competition for land
•Escalation
=
You see there's PvP Combat as one of many. Eg types of conflict are highly variable. And PvP itself will be:-
1v1, GroupvsGroupvsGroup... , PvPvE, Economic Warfare, Political warfare etc.
Agree on the HUD for the player characters: Don't like it. It's a floaty annoying thing imo.
Remember when a car company made a Ferrari with a budget of $3-5 million dollars?
How about that 4 bedroom house you bought for $5000 dollars? Remember when you had a world class meal for $2?
You see where I'm going with this? All the best ideas in the world don't make up for a lack of resources. Yes, some 4-6 hour indie games do get made on shoe string budgets - MMOs are not in the same class.
MMOs have a minimum budget to meet market standards. If those minimum standards don't get met then what you get in return is something very, very lacking.
Is money everything? No. Does $200 million make your project successful? No. That still doesn't mean money is no object though. If the game has had to sacrifice on things like technology, QA testing, artwork and integral systems then it's definitely about the money.
Remember when a car company made a Ferrari with a budget of $3-5 million dollars?
How about that 4 bedroom house you bought for $5000 dollars? Remember when you had a world class meal for $2?
You see where I'm going with this? All the best ideas in the world don't make up for a lack of resources. Yes, some 4-6 hour indie games do get made on shoe string budgets - MMOs are not in the same class.
MMOs have a minimum budget to meet market standards. If those minimum standards don't get met then what you get in return is something very, very lacking.
Is money everything? No. Does $200 million make your project successful? No. That still doesn't mean money is no object though. If the game has had to sacrifice on things like technology, QA testing, artwork and integral systems then it's definitely about the money.
CCP was founded in June 1997 by Reynir Harðarson, Þórólfur Beck and Ívar Kristjánssonfor the purpose of making MMORPGs. In order to finance the initial development of Eve Online, CCP developed and published a board game in Iceland called Hættuspil ("Danger Game"). The game sold more than 10,000 copies to Iceland's 80,000 households.In April 2000 the company, with Sigurður Arnljótsson as CEO, raised $2.6 million, through a closed offering organized by Kaupthing Bank (now Arion banki), from private investors in Iceland, including the Icelandic telephone company Síminn. He was with the company from 1999 to 2002 during which time the company raised 2 rounds of financing and secured a contract with Simon and Schuster interactive games.
You'll get a smaller audience. But with a smaller budget you have lower dev time and hence costs and hence if you hit your lower audience numbers sooner to positive cash flow and hence lower risks.
Sure the quality will be much lower than 200m$ AAA Production studio which will then sit back and milk the returns as soon as possible and if it does not hit 1m subs etc then they'll leave it on life-support and sack a whole bunch of devs after release then another round when those 1m subs are ""only"" 400,000.
Remember when a car company made a Ferrari with a budget of $3-5 million dollars?
How about that 4 bedroom house you bought for $5000 dollars? Remember when you had a world class meal for $2?
You see where I'm going with this? All the best ideas in the world don't make up for a lack of resources. Yes, some 4-6 hour indie games do get made on shoe string budgets - MMOs are not in the same class.
MMOs have a minimum budget to meet market standards. If those minimum standards don't get met then what you get in return is something very, very lacking.
Is money everything? No. Does $200 million make your project successful? No. That still doesn't mean money is no object though. If the game has had to sacrifice on things like technology, QA testing, artwork and integral systems then it's definitely about the money.
CCP was founded in June 1997 by Reynir Harðarson, Þórólfur Beck and Ívar Kristjánssonfor the purpose of making MMORPGs. In order to finance the initial development of Eve Online, CCP developed and published a board game in Iceland called Hættuspil ("Danger Game"). The game sold more than 10,000 copies to Iceland's 80,000 households.In April 2000 the company, with Sigurður Arnljótsson as CEO, raised $2.6 million, through a closed offering organized by Kaupthing Bank (now Arion banki), from private investors in Iceland, including the Icelandic telephone company Síminn. He was with the company from 1999 to 2002 during which time the company raised 2 rounds of financing and secured a contract with Simon and Schuster interactive games.
You'll get a smaller audience. But with a smaller budget you have lower dev time and hence costs and hence if you hit your lower audience numbers sooner to positive cash flow and hence lower risks.
Sure the quality will be much lower than 200m$ AAA Production studio which will then sit back and milk the returns as soon as possible and if it does not hit 1m subs etc then they'll leave it on life-support and sack a whole bunch of devs after release then another round when those 1m subs are ""only"" 400,000.
I think it shows a lot of thought has gone into the dev decisions and this is reflected in:-
Camelot Unchained
Gloria Victus
The Repopulation
etc etc...
Already the diversity is rising compared to the old days of high polish but themepark model of mmorpg dominating from WOW-Wildstar.
Oh silly me, I forgot to put in my "a one off exception of a game, entering into a sub-genre that didn't really exist, over a decade ago doesn't really count".
That point still stands. There are no new sub-genres to enter into now apart from maybe some kind of odd zombie survival horror MMO but H1Z1 already got the jump on that.
Furthering that, it's a different time than it was 10 years ago, where the minimum budget concept didn't apply as much. The minimum budget isn't huge but you're looking at around $15-20 million for any kind of competitive product. (And a hell of a lot of sacrifice from your people.)
Am I saying a small budget MMO won't gather a niché crowd and enjoy some OK success? Not at all. However, people's expectations right now are "the next thing" and no indie title is ever going to deliver that. As you said, the ideas and diversity will be there; the technology, assets, content and system likely will not. And most aren't going to sit around for 3 years (as with Eve) waiting for it to be fleshed out more.
As a last point, it all depends what your justification of "a good game" is too.If financials and player counts are all you look at, then sure, RuneScape is the bomb. It's one of the top 3 MMOs. As far as the itself game? It's cheap, boring and about as interesting as a tax document. My opinion on Eve stands the same there really as well. That game was dull, slow and lacked any real gameplay which is why I only ever lasted 3 hours on it.
It isn't going live in two weeks, it gets beyond Alpha if/when it survives the current stress test. Then we enter EE which for all intents and purposes is a closed beta. Only those who kickstarted for EE levels and those players they provide for, plus the alphas will be in the game experiencing it.
It has at least a year to go before release.
You will pay a subscription in two weeks, you will start playing in two weeks, and you will start accumulating XP which will not be reset, never, in two weeks.
And as you can see for yourself, October 30 2014 will be "the game in the 1st month"
By opposition to "the game in the second month"
And "The game when the game is better and the community is well evolved, in 2016"
If that is a beta, well clearly Age of Conan was in beta until now ! They should announce the official launch, everybody will forget the last years and give it a second chance !
PFO is not a beta, it is a MVP.
It is funny to look at a lot of new "mmorpg.com" joiner to "discuss" about hot air.
For the record.. i do have slight interest in PFO, i do agree with a lot of the design documents(read the blogs.. hundred of pages.. almost), however i did not invest, nor played the game. Not because i do not share the concept philosphy, just because i don't like to be involved as early, and even more don't like to waste time on a unfinished product.. i did that 10 years ago with a lot more time available.
However.. now from a software developer(not a game developer) i tell you what actually a beta is considered. A Software Beta(at that is true for game software, too) is a software in a state with all features implemented, just not refined, and not all bugs fixed. Basicly when your software is more or less finished.. just not good enough to released.
If you look at those banners you quoted.. PFO will actually be in Beta with Open Enrollment, when the core feautres have been implemented as they state it. Everything before is more or less a alpha state.. a state where not all features are implemented and not everything(feature wise) is set in stone.
So it is not worth to discuss in what state PFO actually is.. it is obviously for everyone with some experience. And it does not matter if you pay before or not.
What you actually want to discuss, and what your concern actually is, is that they charge money and even a subscription for an obviously unfinished and in development product(as some other indy developers have done it.. however not a subscirption.. to finance their game development.. commonly known as crowdfunding) and even more don't reset the game world nor the character advancement. Is it clever? I don't know. Is it an unfair advantage in comparsion to those starting 2016 or even 2018? I don't know. And all of this questions are worthy to discuss. But just to get angry and cry out loud does not help you nor the game nor anyone else.
So in all honestly.. you are obviously interested(or you would not waste that much time with it), so try to discuss more the important, and for you concerning issues, and not so much in what state it is..
I am will wait at least until 2016.. and if it is acutally unbalanced and that those early starters do have an uncatchable advantage i will most probably just skip it and play/wait for the next interesting game.. not a lot of time or money wasted in my case.. at most a interesting game lost, because of a not so clever advancement policy.
And about advancement policies.. that may be a core issue with the complete genre, when you can't start a game a few month or even years after is launced, if you can't play together with those player a few month or years before you. However i do not have enough knowledge about PFO to say anything about that, or even discuss about that.. i did not read all design documents.. but it would be very unclever with such a starting scenario not to be able to catch up later on.. because then it would be more or less doomed for day 1.
Just my 2 cents.
And just an addition to paid betas. I have played Minecraft a few years before release.. and payed for it.. I have played Mount& Blade, DayZ Standalone and others before release and payed for it. Some even years.. however if it is not feature complete and not officially release it is still alpha or beta, noneitherless if you paid or not. And that is another topic alltogehter if it is "ok" to have paid access to unfinished (in beta/alpha) software or not. But all of them(PFO including) made it obviously(if you have read even a little bit about it) that those games were or are(like DayZ standalone or PFO) still in development, still not feature complete, and withit still in alpha.
I was really excited by the game and it's concepts and bought 2 Crowdforger Buddy accounts and 2 regular ones. It just seems way too undercooked for me (and I have a pretty big tolerance for these things). Even though a main draw for me was getting in on day 1 (and all the subsequent advantages those folks will have over later players) there is a good chance that I will not activate my sub when it opens. I am in one of the "big" PFO guilds and we honestly only have about a dozen people confirmed starting. Many others (well over a hundred) have not even responded to repeated prompts. Not a good sign for the game.
All time classic MY NEW FAVORITE POST! (Keep laying those bricks)
"I should point out that no other company has shipped out a beta on a disc before this." - Official Mortal Online Lead Community Moderator
Proudly wearing the Harbinger badge since Dec 23, 2017.
Coined the phrase "Role-Playing a Development Team" January 2018
"Oddly Slap is the main reason I stay in these forums." - Mystichaze April 9th 2018
Remember when a car company made a Ferrari with a budget of $3-5 million dollars?
How about that 4 bedroom house you bought for $5000 dollars? Remember when you had a world class meal for $2?
You see where I'm going with this? All the best ideas in the world don't make up for a lack of resources. Yes, some 4-6 hour indie games do get made on shoe string budgets - MMOs are not in the same class.
MMOs have a minimum budget to meet market standards. If those minimum standards don't get met then what you get in return is something very, very lacking.
Is money everything? No. Does $200 million make your project successful? No. That still doesn't mean money is no object though. If the game has had to sacrifice on things like technology, QA testing, artwork and integral systems then it's definitely about the money.
CCP was founded in June 1997 by Reynir Harðarson, Þórólfur Beck and Ívar Kristjánssonfor the purpose of making MMORPGs. In order to finance the initial development of Eve Online, CCP developed and published a board game in Iceland called Hættuspil ("Danger Game"). The game sold more than 10,000 copies to Iceland's 80,000 households.In April 2000 the company, with Sigurður Arnljótsson as CEO, raised $2.6 million, through a closed offering organized by Kaupthing Bank (now Arion banki), from private investors in Iceland, including the Icelandic telephone company Síminn. He was with the company from 1999 to 2002 during which time the company raised 2 rounds of financing and secured a contract with Simon and Schuster interactive games.
You'll get a smaller audience. But with a smaller budget you have lower dev time and hence costs and hence if you hit your lower audience numbers sooner to positive cash flow and hence lower risks.
Sure the quality will be much lower than 200m$ AAA Production studio which will then sit back and milk the returns as soon as possible and if it does not hit 1m subs etc then they'll leave it on life-support and sack a whole bunch of devs after release then another round when those 1m subs are ""only"" 400,000.
I think it shows a lot of thought has gone into the dev decisions and this is reflected in:-
Camelot Unchained
Gloria Victus
The Repopulation
etc etc...
Already the diversity is rising compared to the old days of high polish but themepark model of mmorpg dominating from WOW-Wildstar.
Oh silly me, I forgot to put in my "a one off exception of a game, entering into a sub-genre that didn't really exist, over a decade ago doesn't really count".
That point still stands. There are no new sub-genres to enter into now apart from maybe some kind of odd zombie survival horror MMO but H1Z1 already got the jump on that.
Furthering that, it's a different time than it was 10 years ago, where the minimum budget concept didn't apply as much. The minimum budget isn't huge but you're looking at around $15-20 million for any kind of competitive product. (And a hell of a lot of sacrifice from your people.)
Am I saying a small budget MMO won't gather a niché crowd and enjoy some OK success? Not at all. However, people's expectations right now are "the next thing" and no indie title is ever going to deliver that. As you said, the ideas and diversity will be there; the technology, assets, content and system likely will not. And most aren't going to sit around for 3 years (as with Eve) waiting for it to be fleshed out more.
As a last point, it all depends what your justification of "a good game" is too.If financials and player counts are all you look at, then sure, RuneScape is the bomb. It's one of the top 3 MMOs. As far as the itself game? It's cheap, boring and about as interesting as a tax document. My opinion on Eve stands the same there really as well. That game was dull, slow and lacked any real gameplay which is why I only ever lasted 3 hours on it.
On success: Proxy measures:-
From Dev point of view:-
From Player point of view:-
Odyssey - 4 Jun 2013
Retribution - 4 Dec 2012
Inferno - 24 Apr 2012
Crucible - 29 Nov 2011
Incarna - 21 June 2011
Incursion - 30 Nov 2010
Tyrannis - 26 May 2010
Dominion - 1 Dec 2009
Apocrypha - 10 Mar 2009
Quantum Rise - 11 Nov 2008
Empyrean Age - 10 Jun 2008
Trinity - 12 Dec 2007
Revelations II - 19 June 2007
Revelations - 29 Nov 2006
Red Moon Rising - 14 Dec 2005
Cold War - 29 Jun 2005
Exodus - 17 Nov 2004
Castor - 18 Dec 2003
Second Genesis - 6 May 2003
I think the idea is that Goblinworks spend about 4-7m$ on Development pre-release then that again ie 8-14m$ in total subsequent years after release eg 3 or 4 with growth.
For sure it's not going to be that great initially, but I think the game is designed as per EVE to scale up fairly well with more players, more interesting game play choices?
As for EVE perhaps it was a bit dull, but atst it also successfully produced some of the most interesting mmorpg stories; another measure of success it could be said?
I tried alpha and tbh was quite disappointed, sure there are bug and the like but that is to be expected, it is alpha. Also to be expected is that Early Enrollment is also a ongoing alpha and they never tried to hide this. BTW EE is like a "head start you get with founder packs " for other games as there will be no wipe unless something major happens.
The game has potential but it also has some things which I find a big turn off. Some things I do not like:
~ ranged attacks are rooted
Very good thing
Opinions vary on this...to each there own and btw it is suppose to be temporary
~ no run toggle you need to hold down shift or watnot to "sprint"
Who gives a shit? I never ever use run toggles in MMOs.
Obviously I do.....I like having an option so I can be in "run" mode all the time instead of having to hold down shift or whatnot...I am also sure there are other that would like this too
~ current aggro mechanics result in a leash like behavior
Not a big deal
It really is and is why they made ranged rooted for now...too many melee were whinging about ranged being to easy when the problem is really a aggro mechanics problem.
~ IA is very very stupid
(assuming you mean AI) show me a game where it isn't stupid
Indeed I meant AI, and yes many AI are stupid but this AI makes all the others look like geniuses.
~ missing very basic controls that we tend to take for granted in most mmos (in FS cant alt tab without game crashing and things of this nature)
Granted this sounds annoying although hardly gamebreaking
It is indeed game breaking when you play FS and need to alt tab out to do other things on your pc while your character is crafting but it crashes the client. It kind of defeats the purpose of using a nice top of the line screen when you have to play games in windowed mode.
~ crafting is frakking boring and has huge huge craft times
"boring" is subjective but I think this is good as I hate easymode crafting.
Indeed much of what I said is subjective as they are my opinions only and btw I have never played WoW, am not a fan of wow and do not like easy modes either, doesn't mean I like stupid systems though.
~ skills and their progression are not very intuitive
~ they way skills and gear works is confusing for newbies. For example you get the skill frost ray but need a wand to actually use it then when you finally get frost ray 2 you think woot damage upgrade but nada because you need a +1 wand to use frost ray 2, the same thing with armor and armor feats/skills etc etc.
So the game doesn't hold your hand and is rather complex? *good*
Again I like complex and games that do not hold your hand, like for example Project Gorgon. This game however just bungles and mismatches things together to avoid having "classes" to get around IP copyright issues.
I'm finally gonna try out PFO tonight and your inadvertently positive review has got me all hyped. Maybe Blizzard makes an MMO that would be better suited for you though. Seems like you hate virtually everything about PFO's design.
My replies in orange, I am happy my opinions have helped you decide to try this game, that said I find it funny you come in defending the game like I was trying to bash it when I was just expressing what I though about it.
It is funny because it is making you sound like one of the big fans from the official forums that for some odd reason took extreme offense to what I thought even though I clearly defended some things about it like how they didn't try and hide what EE would be like etc.
Comes down to this, the game didn't not feel very DnD or pathfinder like to me AT ALL, it did feel like a badly rinky dink sandbox game with some vague names and lore taken from the IP that needs a whole lot of work. Which is why I will check back on the game in 1 year or so and see what it is like then.
Lastly nothing about my post was inadvertent but thank you for sharing even if you did try to put in connotations to my opinions which may or may not have been there.
Brenics ~ Just to point out I do believe Chris Roberts is going down as the man who cheated backers and took down crowdfunding for gaming.
I tried alpha and tbh was quite disappointed, sure there are bug and the like but that is to be expected, it is alpha. Also to be expected is that Early Enrollment is also a ongoing alpha and they never tried to hide this. BTW EE is like a "head start you get with founder packs " for other games as there will be no wipe unless something major happens.
The game has potential but it also has some things which I find a big turn off. Some things I do not like:
~ ranged attacks are rooted
Very good thing
Opinions vary on this...to each there own and btw it is suppose to be temporary
~ no run toggle you need to hold down shift or watnot to "sprint"
Who gives a shit? I never ever use run toggles in MMOs.
Obviously I do.....I like having an option so I can be in "run" mode all the time instead of having to hold down shift or whatnot...I am also sure there are other that would like this too
~ current aggro mechanics result in a leash like behavior
Not a big deal
It really is and is why they made ranged rooted for now...too many melee were whinging about ranged being to easy when the problem is really a aggro mechanics problem.
~ IA is very very stupid
(assuming you mean AI) show me a game where it isn't stupid
Indeed I meant AI, and yes many AI are stupid but this AI makes all the others look like geniuses.
~ missing very basic controls that we tend to take for granted in most mmos (in FS cant alt tab without game crashing and things of this nature)
Granted this sounds annoying although hardly gamebreaking
It is indeed game breaking when you play FS and need to alt tab out to do other things on your pc while your character is crafting but it crashes the client. It kind of defeats the purpose of using a nice top of the line screen when you have to play games in windowed mode.
~ crafting is frakking boring and has huge huge craft times
"boring" is subjective but I think this is good as I hate easymode crafting.
Indeed much of what I said is subjective as they are my opinions only and btw I have never played WoW, am not a fan of wow and do not like easy modes either, doesn't mean I like stupid systems though.
~ skills and their progression are not very intuitive
~ they way skills and gear works is confusing for newbies. For example you get the skill frost ray but need a wand to actually use it then when you finally get frost ray 2 you think woot damage upgrade but nada because you need a +1 wand to use frost ray 2, the same thing with armor and armor feats/skills etc etc.
So the game doesn't hold your hand and is rather complex? *good*
Again I like complex and games that do not hold your hand, like for example Project Gorgon. This game however just bungles and mismatches things together to avoid having "classes" to get around IP copyright issues.
I'm finally gonna try out PFO tonight and your inadvertently positive review has got me all hyped. Maybe Blizzard makes an MMO that would be better suited for you though. Seems like you hate virtually everything about PFO's design.
My replies in orange, I am happy my opinions have helped you decide to try this game, that said I find it funny you come in defending the game like I was trying to bash it when I was just expressing what I though about it.
It is funny because it is making you sound like one of the big fans from the official forums that for some odd reason took extreme offense to what I thought even though I clearly defended some things about it like how they didn't try and hide what EE would be like etc.
Comes down to this, the game didn't not feel very DnD or pathfinder like to me AT ALL, it did feel like a badly rinky dink sandbox game with some vague names and lore taken from the IP that needs a whole lot of work. Which is why I will check back on the game in 1 year or so and see what it is like then.
Lastly nothing about my post was inadvertent but thank you for sharing even if you did try to put in connotations to my opinions which may or may not have been there.
You mention copyright issues but the devs have Pazio's permission, etc to make the game. I don't think the classless system has anything to do with copyrights regardless of whether you agree with it as a design decision or not.
My replies in orange, I am happy my opinions have helped you decide to try this game, that said I find it funny you come in defending the game like I was trying to bash it when I was just expressing what I though about it.
It is funny because it is making you sound like one of the big fans from the official forums that for some odd reason took extreme offense to what I thought even though I clearly defended some things about it like how they didn't try and hide what EE would be like etc.
Comes down to this, the game didn't not feel very DnD or pathfinder like to me AT ALL, it did feel like a badly rinky dink sandbox game with some vague names and lore taken from the IP that needs a whole lot of work. Which is why I will check back on the game in 1 year or so and see what it is like then.
Lastly nothing about my post was inadvertent but thank you for sharing even if you did try to put in connotations to my opinions which may or may not have been there.
Sorry..you're pretty much right in what you say here. As someone who's very excited for this game I'm just kind of tired of the many people who just look seem to look for whatever reason to bash it and tell others not to play (just look at the title of this thread). I'll take you at your word that that's not actually what you were doing although I kind of jumped to that conclusion in that post last night. You're certainly entitled to your opinions about the game and I think constructive criticism can only help GW.
You mention copyright issues but the devs have Pazio's permission, etc to make the game. I don't think the classless system has anything to do with copyrights regardless of whether you agree with it as a design decision or not.
I think pathfinder was created using the open game license which would cause issues or something, I saw one of the dev videos a long while ago when they talked about this.
Brenics ~ Just to point out I do believe Chris Roberts is going down as the man who cheated backers and took down crowdfunding for gaming.
I think pathfinder was created using the open game license which would cause issues or something, I saw one of the dev videos a long while ago when they talked about this.
Heard something about this too but I think they are good with it.
So let me get this straight. You knew you were investing in a game that was low budget, testing in alpha were many of its features were still being developed, and knew of what they were going for in design of the game (I'd hope considering you paid).
No, wrong.
I did not pay $1k for Alpha. I paid for EE. No one said EE was going to be Alpha. EE was marketed as similar to any kind of EE for any kind of game. You pay more and pay early, you get in before everyone else. Yes, many features will come later but the BASE of the game should be ready to go. It's not.
They are not going to upgrade the graphics in two weeks (seriously, they look 10 years old)
They are not going to fix people rubber-banding/skipping in two weeks (This was in an uncrowded area right when I logged in)
I mean, for Christ's sake YOU CAN'T EVEN TAB BETWEEN THE LOGIN NAME/PASSWORD IN THE LOGIN SCREEN. This functionality is so basic!
This is not raging about an unfinished game. It's raging against the pile of crap the game seems to be heading into EE.
First you said $100, then you say $1k. Which is it?
Also, Noone will feel sorry for you making a choice YOU KNEW better of. They state in all purchases of ANY Alphas what you will experience. YES, Purutzil IS CORRECT!
You failed to read between the lines and pretty much thought, " This looks good, I'll buy it." Yes..I am right.
Most people with big wallets don't care really, but in your case, you cared after the fact.
Only an idiot would pay $$$ for something they didn't research beforehand. You did NOT do that. You jumped in blind, didn't like what you saw and are now bitter because your money all of a sudden is gone.
I feel in no way sorry or will agree with you. Maybe you have learned a lesson, maybe not.
Originally posted by kikoodutroa8 Get a popular license, milk fanbois, it will never get old.
Generally with the AAA Themepark titles, yes it's themeparkification of the IP which LOWERS player FREEDOM. Actually I'm really not sure that milking the fanbois of the pathfinder license was the main reason here. I mean Goblinworks have taken the license and completely inverted the game system from a cooperative small group game to a massively player vs player game system. It's like chalk and cheese. I mean this choice is the surest way to say to the TT players, this game may not be for you. And that points more to a gamers/mmorpg players market I suspect that is "untapped" or at least not specifically targetted atm? Though with recent indie flux (positive overall) of titles there's growing competition with other companies similarly deciding there's a market here.
So I don't necessarily think the intention is to milk the fanbois. I think the Kickstarter really benefitted from both the IP and ability to do a tie-in promotion with Paizo on their products, but the fans of Paizo got what they wanted in terms of value for money there without necessarily investing in PFO?
I do think however a strong brand + tab-target choices were all important to reduce risk in a risky genre and a risky game design. The business model similarly was all about reducing risk too.
=
Back OT, yeah atm PFO is very crude, the recent Alpha 10 was a big boon but it's sounds like it needs more serious work to achieve real MVP status that is ready to be invested in with cash for return of immediate fun and persistence of investment seeing more securing because it's fun ie more players will come because it's proven fun and hence investment in the future rises.
o you're playing a game that doesn't even have the core features added until Jan, 2016. So.... Beta then......
If a game isn't adding the "CORE FEATURES" and is only allow certain people to play that paid "x" amount of money. That is what we like to call beta. It really doesn't matter if they do a wipe or not. This is still just a beta.
Sorry you feel like you got screwed but you all always take that chance when you do Kick Starter. Learn from your mistake and stop donating if you don't like the results.
On Monday (barring delays) you will be able to play in the Alpha. Have fun!
The Alpha is scheduled to end on the 25th and Early Enrollment is scheduled to begin on the 25th. If you have Early Enrollment access (and it sounds like you do), you'll be able to play on the first day of Early Enrollment (if you want to).
You can verify your Enrollment status by logging in to gobliworks.com and clicking the account link (it's right below the Pathfinder Online logo and it's in the form "username account". You'll see your enrollment status on the information page.
There is no "beta". We should not have used that term in the Reward description but by the time we decided it was a mistake to have used that term it was too late to change the Reward text. Early Enrollment is not a "beta test" in the classic sense. It is instead "early access". The game will be a "minimum viable product" - a complete, playable game that has all the basic features required to play. It will however be the first iteration of those features and some non-essential features are still being developed. You, and the other Early Enrollees will have a chance to help us create Pathfinder Online through our Crowdforging intiatives.
If you don't want to play the game at this time you do not have to begin using the game time you received from the Kickstarter and can wait as long as you wish before you do use that time. The game will continuously iterate and become more complex as time progresses."
It is people like the OP that make big MMOs have NDAs, seriously. This game is in Alpha, of course it sucks right now, many of it's major features that will define it ARE NOT YET IMPLEMENTED.
Seriously, have some patients, this is an Indie MMO that has so much potential! Stop trying to give it bad press with your unfounded statements.
Annoying.
I've played many games (several dozen in fact) in both Alpha and beta stages, and they do not all suck, have dated graphics, or have big budgets.
I compare PFO to its closest competition Life is Feudal. Both are small companies (although PFO has a larger backer in Paizo). Both have small budgets in comparison to other MMOs in development. Both started their Alpha within the last 6 months.
Looking at LiF it appears that they are using a better graphics engine, than Unity. Their animations are smoother, sound is better, skill system is more developed, etc...
PFO feels like it is stagnated in its first month of development. My suggestion is to give it another 4-6 months, then revisit it.
Played: E&B, SWG, Eve, WoW, COH, WAR, POTBS, AOC, LOTRO, AUTO.A, AO, FE, TR, WWII, MWO, TSW, SWTOR, GW2, NWO, WoP, RUST, LIF, SOA, MORTAL, DFUW, AA, TF, PFO, ALBO, and many many others....
Back OT, yeah atm PFO is very crude, the recent Alpha 10 was a big boon but it's sounds like it needs more serious work to achieve real MVP status that is ready to be invested in with cash for return of immediate fun and persistence of investment seeing more securing because it's fun ie more players will come because it's proven fun and hence investment in the future rises.
As before:-
1. Player Roles
2. Setttlement Functions
3. Polish of the above interactions
= Fun imo.
Alpha 10 a "big boon"!!
Alpha 10.0 introduced falling through the sky; unpredictably warping to far and distant lands; missing items in inventory, banks, AH's, and crafting queues.
Alpha 10.0 introduced Companies, Joining Settlements and the War of Towers.
Joining Companies is not streamlined and not very informative if you have actually joined one or not. Same goes with joining a settlement.
The War of Towers did work, once! Once you captured a tower, you could not set the PVP window for it to reopen again. Once the PVP timer did reach 0, nothing happened other than the timer went to a negative countdown.
Now that 10.1 has been released, I'm assuming that the server stability is a bit better. The towers are still broken. The system for joining companies and settlements are still not working properly, etc....
To be fair, this game is in early stages of Alpha. Even if the game does go into Early Enrollment pahse in a few days, it is still a game that is in early stages of Alpha. It can not or should not even be called Beta, because it is not comparably developed to 90% of the betas I have ever tested.
Ryan Dancey can choose not to call it Alpha or Beta or paid Beta, and I have no understanding why he wouldn't, it only opens the game up for more criticism. It's as if he believes that if he avoids using industry standard terminology, he thinks it sound like Goblin Works is breaking new ground or something.
I expect and hope they push back the start of Early Enrollment. 10.1 did not advance the game enough to be called MVP. They should set their sights on January 1, 2015 in my opinion.
Played: E&B, SWG, Eve, WoW, COH, WAR, POTBS, AOC, LOTRO, AUTO.A, AO, FE, TR, WWII, MWO, TSW, SWTOR, GW2, NWO, WoP, RUST, LIF, SOA, MORTAL, DFUW, AA, TF, PFO, ALBO, and many many others....
When they start on kickstarter they saw nothing.. but peoples pay for it... Now? there is nothing too:D. Why you paid for this game? How long it tooks now.. and where is the progres? What engine they use?
The game is currently very much in an early alpha stage.. not all the basic mechanics are in place, basically a bare minimum but that is to be expected for an alpha test and that is what they are there for.
Still I find it crazy that they have decided to charge people a monthly sub while developing the game.. I cant see many people paying for that but maybe they dont want that many testers to start with who knows..
Back OT, yeah atm PFO is very crude, the recent Alpha 10 was a big boon but it's sounds like it needs more serious work to achieve real MVP status that is ready to be invested in with cash for return of immediate fun and persistence of investment seeing more securing because it's fun ie more players will come because it's proven fun and hence investment in the future rises.
As before:-
1. Player Roles
2. Setttlement Functions
3. Polish of the above interactions
= Fun imo.
Alpha 10 a "big boon"!!
Alpha 10.0 introduced falling through the sky; unpredictably warping to far and distant lands; missing items in inventory, banks, AH's, and crafting queues.
Alpha 10.0 introduced Companies, Joining Settlements and the War of Towers.
Joining Companies is not streamlined and not very informative if you have actually joined one or not. Same goes with joining a settlement.
The War of Towers did work, once! Once you captured a tower, you could not set the PVP window for it to reopen again. Once the PVP timer did reach 0, nothing happened other than the timer went to a negative countdown.
Now that 10.1 has been released, I'm assuming that the server stability is a bit better. The towers are still broken. The system for joining companies and settlements are still not working properly, etc....
To be fair, this game is in early stages of Alpha. Even if the game does go into Early Enrollment pahse in a few days, it is still a game that is in early stages of Alpha. It can not or should not even be called Beta, because it is not comparably developed to 90% of the betas I have ever tested.
Ryan Dancey can choose not to call it Alpha or Beta or paid Beta, and I have no understanding why he wouldn't, it only opens the game up for more criticism. It's as if he believes that if he avoids using industry standard terminology, he thinks it sound like Goblin Works is breaking new ground or something.
I expect and hope they push back the start of Early Enrollment. 10.1 did not advance the game enough to be called MVP. They should set their sights on January 1, 2015 in my opinion.
I think we're in agreement despite appearances. It means to me: If they can get those features in and tested, then they should probably get some of the others in and complete the combat and other performance testing and DELAY EE until 2015.
By all (alpha) accounts, EE is not ready or if GW says it is it's a raw deal.
Coming back to LiF, uses a modified version of the Torque3D engine. It does look better, but I think GW have to deal much more with the Networking Code for their game design than the LiF devs will have to. And that is where losing out on signing with BigWorld seems to be a major factor in where PFO is right now, I would make a guess. It's more work to get a basic game functioning with lots of players enabled to combat each other in mass brawls over territory, any time, any place, any one.
Comments
It's not just "same name" it's a module for the official Pathfinder game (made by paizo).
There is all kinds of stuff from D&D/Pathfinder in this game: races, classes, spells, feats. You name it. Main things they are changing is not having turn based combat (because it's hard to get it to work in an MMO) and buying your skills individually with XP some of which you will get even while offline (although there are still levels in the game as well). It's also much larger scale so you have settlements and towns rather than adventure parties to make best use of the massively multiplayer environment.
I don't think any of these things will really take away from the D&D/Pathfinder feel of the game too much. It's targeted at fans of the pen and paper games.
They've also talked about having player designed adventure modules like in the Neverwinter Nights games that players can design and sell and then play like "quests" in the MMO. (although that is a "far in the future" thing)
Cool, thanks for clarification. Not being in Alpha makes it hard to know some of this stuff.
Knowledge can explain the darkness, but it is not a light.
The d20 systems just does not translate well, however. I think tab-target (for all it's limitation) is the appropriate skill approximation for this game that matches RPG closest.
See this awesome break-down on the subject:-
The Abstraction Of Skill In Game Design
But actually as PFO is a single world server that CONNECTS all the player-base, the combat is NOT the major emphasis or gratification of the game and hence tab-target is merely the vehicle to accomodate combat in the networking and mix of other major systems.
Ryan Dancey has mentioned:-
"More Than Just Tackles"
• Persistent structures
• Player-centric economy
• Territorial warfare
•Lots of con?ict
•PvP combat
•Competition for resources
•Competition for land
•Escalation
=
You see there's PvP Combat as one of many. Eg types of conflict are highly variable. And PvP itself will be:-
1v1, GroupvsGroupvsGroup... , PvPvE, Economic Warfare, Political warfare etc.
Agree on the HUD for the player characters: Don't like it. It's a floaty annoying thing imo.
http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1014633/Classic-Game-Postmortem
Remember when a car company made a Ferrari with a budget of $3-5 million dollars?
How about that 4 bedroom house you bought for $5000 dollars? Remember when you had a world class meal for $2?
You see where I'm going with this? All the best ideas in the world don't make up for a lack of resources. Yes, some 4-6 hour indie games do get made on shoe string budgets - MMOs are not in the same class.
MMOs have a minimum budget to meet market standards. If those minimum standards don't get met then what you get in return is something very, very lacking.
Is money everything? No. Does $200 million make your project successful? No. That still doesn't mean money is no object though. If the game has had to sacrifice on things like technology, QA testing, artwork and integral systems then it's definitely about the money.
CCP was founded in June 1997 by Reynir Harðarson, Þórólfur Beck and Ívar Kristjánsson for the purpose of making MMORPGs. In order to finance the initial development of Eve Online, CCP developed and published a board game in Iceland called Hættuspil ("Danger Game"). The game sold more than 10,000 copies to Iceland's 80,000 households. In April 2000 the company, with Sigurður Arnljótsson as CEO, raised $2.6 million, through a closed offering organized by Kaupthing Bank (now Arion banki), from private investors in Iceland, including the Icelandic telephone company Síminn. He was with the company from 1999 to 2002 during which time the company raised 2 rounds of financing and secured a contract with Simon and Schuster interactive games.
You'll get a smaller audience. But with a smaller budget you have lower dev time and hence costs and hence if you hit your lower audience numbers sooner to positive cash flow and hence lower risks.
Sure the quality will be much lower than 200m$ AAA Production studio which will then sit back and milk the returns as soon as possible and if it does not hit 1m subs etc then they'll leave it on life-support and sack a whole bunch of devs after release then another round when those 1m subs are ""only"" 400,000.
More here:-
Pathfinder Online’s Ryan Dancey Defends Elder Scrolls Online and Subscriptions
Pathfinder's Dancey on the 'broken AAA themepark financial model'
Pathfinder Online's Ryan Dancey on crowdforging a 'minimum viable product'
I think it shows a lot of thought has gone into the dev decisions and this is reflected in:-
Camelot Unchained
Gloria Victus
The Repopulation
etc etc...
Already the diversity is rising compared to the old days of high polish but themepark model of mmorpg dominating from WOW-Wildstar.
http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1014633/Classic-Game-Postmortem
Oh silly me, I forgot to put in my "a one off exception of a game, entering into a sub-genre that didn't really exist, over a decade ago doesn't really count".
That point still stands. There are no new sub-genres to enter into now apart from maybe some kind of odd zombie survival horror MMO but H1Z1 already got the jump on that.
Furthering that, it's a different time than it was 10 years ago, where the minimum budget concept didn't apply as much. The minimum budget isn't huge but you're looking at around $15-20 million for any kind of competitive product. (And a hell of a lot of sacrifice from your people.)
Am I saying a small budget MMO won't gather a niché crowd and enjoy some OK success? Not at all. However, people's expectations right now are "the next thing" and no indie title is ever going to deliver that. As you said, the ideas and diversity will be there; the technology, assets, content and system likely will not. And most aren't going to sit around for 3 years (as with Eve) waiting for it to be fleshed out more.
As a last point, it all depends what your justification of "a good game" is too.If financials and player counts are all you look at, then sure, RuneScape is the bomb. It's one of the top 3 MMOs. As far as the itself game? It's cheap, boring and about as interesting as a tax document. My opinion on Eve stands the same there really as well. That game was dull, slow and lacked any real gameplay which is why I only ever lasted 3 hours on it.
It is funny to look at a lot of new "mmorpg.com" joiner to "discuss" about hot air.
For the record.. i do have slight interest in PFO, i do agree with a lot of the design documents(read the blogs.. hundred of pages.. almost), however i did not invest, nor played the game. Not because i do not share the concept philosphy, just because i don't like to be involved as early, and even more don't like to waste time on a unfinished product.. i did that 10 years ago with a lot more time available.
However.. now from a software developer(not a game developer) i tell you what actually a beta is considered. A Software Beta(at that is true for game software, too) is a software in a state with all features implemented, just not refined, and not all bugs fixed. Basicly when your software is more or less finished.. just not good enough to released.
If you look at those banners you quoted.. PFO will actually be in Beta with Open Enrollment, when the core feautres have been implemented as they state it. Everything before is more or less a alpha state.. a state where not all features are implemented and not everything(feature wise) is set in stone.
So it is not worth to discuss in what state PFO actually is.. it is obviously for everyone with some experience. And it does not matter if you pay before or not.
What you actually want to discuss, and what your concern actually is, is that they charge money and even a subscription for an obviously unfinished and in development product(as some other indy developers have done it.. however not a subscirption.. to finance their game development.. commonly known as crowdfunding) and even more don't reset the game world nor the character advancement. Is it clever? I don't know. Is it an unfair advantage in comparsion to those starting 2016 or even 2018? I don't know. And all of this questions are worthy to discuss. But just to get angry and cry out loud does not help you nor the game nor anyone else.
So in all honestly.. you are obviously interested(or you would not waste that much time with it), so try to discuss more the important, and for you concerning issues, and not so much in what state it is..
I am will wait at least until 2016.. and if it is acutally unbalanced and that those early starters do have an uncatchable advantage i will most probably just skip it and play/wait for the next interesting game.. not a lot of time or money wasted in my case.. at most a interesting game lost, because of a not so clever advancement policy.
And about advancement policies.. that may be a core issue with the complete genre, when you can't start a game a few month or even years after is launced, if you can't play together with those player a few month or years before you. However i do not have enough knowledge about PFO to say anything about that, or even discuss about that.. i did not read all design documents.. but it would be very unclever with such a starting scenario not to be able to catch up later on.. because then it would be more or less doomed for day 1.
Just my 2 cents.
And just an addition to paid betas. I have played Minecraft a few years before release.. and payed for it.. I have played Mount& Blade, DayZ Standalone and others before release and payed for it. Some even years.. however if it is not feature complete and not officially release it is still alpha or beta, noneitherless if you paid or not. And that is another topic alltogehter if it is "ok" to have paid access to unfinished (in beta/alpha) software or not. But all of them(PFO including) made it obviously(if you have read even a little bit about it) that those games were or are(like DayZ standalone or PFO) still in development, still not feature complete, and withit still in alpha.
I have not played the game since Alpha 8.
I was really excited by the game and it's concepts and bought 2 Crowdforger Buddy accounts and 2 regular ones. It just seems way too undercooked for me (and I have a pretty big tolerance for these things). Even though a main draw for me was getting in on day 1 (and all the subsequent advantages those folks will have over later players) there is a good chance that I will not activate my sub when it opens. I am in one of the "big" PFO guilds and we honestly only have about a dozen people confirmed starting. Many others (well over a hundred) have not even responded to repeated prompts. Not a good sign for the game.
All time classic MY NEW FAVORITE POST! (Keep laying those bricks)
"I should point out that no other company has shipped out a beta on a disc before this." - Official Mortal Online Lead Community Moderator
Proudly wearing the Harbinger badge since Dec 23, 2017.
Coined the phrase "Role-Playing a Development Team" January 2018
"Oddly Slap is the main reason I stay in these forums." - Mystichaze April 9th 2018
On success: Proxy measures:-
From Dev point of view:-
From Player point of view:-
Odyssey - 4 Jun 2013
Retribution - 4 Dec 2012
Inferno - 24 Apr 2012
Crucible - 29 Nov 2011
Incarna - 21 June 2011
Incursion - 30 Nov 2010
Tyrannis - 26 May 2010
Dominion - 1 Dec 2009
Apocrypha - 10 Mar 2009
Quantum Rise - 11 Nov 2008
Empyrean Age - 10 Jun 2008
Trinity - 12 Dec 2007
Revelations II - 19 June 2007
Revelations - 29 Nov 2006
Red Moon Rising - 14 Dec 2005
Cold War - 29 Jun 2005
Exodus - 17 Nov 2004
Castor - 18 Dec 2003
Second Genesis - 6 May 2003
I think the idea is that Goblinworks spend about 4-7m$ on Development pre-release then that again ie 8-14m$ in total subsequent years after release eg 3 or 4 with growth.
For sure it's not going to be that great initially, but I think the game is designed as per EVE to scale up fairly well with more players, more interesting game play choices?
As for EVE perhaps it was a bit dull, but atst it also successfully produced some of the most interesting mmorpg stories; another measure of success it could be said?
http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1014633/Classic-Game-Postmortem
My replies in orange, I am happy my opinions have helped you decide to try this game, that said I find it funny you come in defending the game like I was trying to bash it when I was just expressing what I though about it.
It is funny because it is making you sound like one of the big fans from the official forums that for some odd reason took extreme offense to what I thought even though I clearly defended some things about it like how they didn't try and hide what EE would be like etc.
Comes down to this, the game didn't not feel very DnD or pathfinder like to me AT ALL, it did feel like a badly rinky dink sandbox game with some vague names and lore taken from the IP that needs a whole lot of work. Which is why I will check back on the game in 1 year or so and see what it is like then.
Lastly nothing about my post was inadvertent but thank you for sharing even if you did try to put in connotations to my opinions which may or may not have been there.
Brenics ~ Just to point out I do believe Chris Roberts is going down as the man who cheated backers and took down crowdfunding for gaming.
You mention copyright issues but the devs have Pazio's permission, etc to make the game. I don't think the classless system has anything to do with copyrights regardless of whether you agree with it as a design decision or not.
Steam: Neph
Sorry..you're pretty much right in what you say here. As someone who's very excited for this game I'm just kind of tired of the many people who just look seem to look for whatever reason to bash it and tell others not to play (just look at the title of this thread). I'll take you at your word that that's not actually what you were doing although I kind of jumped to that conclusion in that post last night. You're certainly entitled to your opinions about the game and I think constructive criticism can only help GW.
I think pathfinder was created using the open game license which would cause issues or something, I saw one of the dev videos a long while ago when they talked about this.
Brenics ~ Just to point out I do believe Chris Roberts is going down as the man who cheated backers and took down crowdfunding for gaming.
Heard something about this too but I think they are good with it.
First you said $100, then you say $1k. Which is it?
Also, Noone will feel sorry for you making a choice YOU KNEW better of. They state in all purchases of ANY Alphas what you will experience. YES, Purutzil IS CORRECT!
You failed to read between the lines and pretty much thought, " This looks good, I'll buy it." Yes..I am right.
Most people with big wallets don't care really, but in your case, you cared after the fact.
Only an idiot would pay $$$ for something they didn't research beforehand. You did NOT do that. You jumped in blind, didn't like what you saw and are now bitter because your money all of a sudden is gone.
I feel in no way sorry or will agree with you. Maybe you have learned a lesson, maybe not.
Better you than I.
Sorry it happened to you. Good Luck.
"My Fantasy is having two men at once...
One Cooking and One Cleaning!"
---------------------------
"A good man can make you feel sexy,
strong and able to take on the whole world...
oh sorry...that's wine...wine does that..."
Generally with the AAA Themepark titles, yes it's themeparkification of the IP which LOWERS player FREEDOM. Actually I'm really not sure that milking the fanbois of the pathfinder license was the main reason here. I mean Goblinworks have taken the license and completely inverted the game system from a cooperative small group game to a massively player vs player game system. It's like chalk and cheese. I mean this choice is the surest way to say to the TT players, this game may not be for you. And that points more to a gamers/mmorpg players market I suspect that is "untapped" or at least not specifically targetted atm? Though with recent indie flux (positive overall) of titles there's growing competition with other companies similarly deciding there's a market here.
So I don't necessarily think the intention is to milk the fanbois. I think the Kickstarter really benefitted from both the IP and ability to do a tie-in promotion with Paizo on their products, but the fans of Paizo got what they wanted in terms of value for money there without necessarily investing in PFO?
I do think however a strong brand + tab-target choices were all important to reduce risk in a risky genre and a risky game design. The business model similarly was all about reducing risk too.
=
Back OT, yeah atm PFO is very crude, the recent Alpha 10 was a big boon but it's sounds like it needs more serious work to achieve real MVP status that is ready to be invested in with cash for return of immediate fun and persistence of investment seeing more securing because it's fun ie more players will come because it's proven fun and hence investment in the future rises.
As before:-
1. Player Roles
2. Setttlement Functions
3. Polish of the above interactions
= Fun imo.
http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1014633/Classic-Game-Postmortem
http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2rijk?When-will-the-Kickstarter-people-finally- get#4
"Ryan Dancey
On Monday (barring delays) you will be able to play in the Alpha. Have fun!
The Alpha is scheduled to end on the 25th and Early Enrollment is scheduled to begin on the 25th. If you have Early Enrollment access (and it sounds like you do), you'll be able to play on the first day of Early Enrollment (if you want to).
You can verify your Enrollment status by logging in to gobliworks.com and clicking the account link (it's right below the Pathfinder Online logo and it's in the form "username account". You'll see your enrollment status on the information page.
There is no "beta". We should not have used that term in the Reward description but by the time we decided it was a mistake to have used that term it was too late to change the Reward text. Early Enrollment is not a "beta test" in the classic sense. It is instead "early access". The game will be a "minimum viable product" - a complete, playable game that has all the basic features required to play. It will however be the first iteration of those features and some non-essential features are still being developed. You, and the other Early Enrollees will have a chance to help us create Pathfinder Online through our Crowdforging intiatives.
If you don't want to play the game at this time you do not have to begin using the game time you received from the Kickstarter and can wait as long as you wish before you do use that time. The game will continuously iterate and become more complex as time progresses."
Not a beta.
A rose by any other name would smell as sweet....
All time classic MY NEW FAVORITE POST! (Keep laying those bricks)
"I should point out that no other company has shipped out a beta on a disc before this." - Official Mortal Online Lead Community Moderator
Proudly wearing the Harbinger badge since Dec 23, 2017.
Coined the phrase "Role-Playing a Development Team" January 2018
"Oddly Slap is the main reason I stay in these forums." - Mystichaze April 9th 2018
I've played many games (several dozen in fact) in both Alpha and beta stages, and they do not all suck, have dated graphics, or have big budgets.
I compare PFO to its closest competition Life is Feudal. Both are small companies (although PFO has a larger backer in Paizo). Both have small budgets in comparison to other MMOs in development. Both started their Alpha within the last 6 months.
Looking at LiF it appears that they are using a better graphics engine, than Unity. Their animations are smoother, sound is better, skill system is more developed, etc...
PFO feels like it is stagnated in its first month of development. My suggestion is to give it another 4-6 months, then revisit it.
Played: E&B, SWG, Eve, WoW, COH, WAR, POTBS, AOC, LOTRO, AUTO.A, AO, FE, TR, WWII, MWO, TSW, SWTOR, GW2, NWO, WoP, RUST, LIF, SOA, MORTAL, DFUW, AA, TF, PFO, ALBO, and many many others....
Alpha 10 a "big boon"!!
Alpha 10.0 introduced falling through the sky; unpredictably warping to far and distant lands; missing items in inventory, banks, AH's, and crafting queues.
Alpha 10.0 introduced Companies, Joining Settlements and the War of Towers.
Joining Companies is not streamlined and not very informative if you have actually joined one or not. Same goes with joining a settlement.
The War of Towers did work, once! Once you captured a tower, you could not set the PVP window for it to reopen again. Once the PVP timer did reach 0, nothing happened other than the timer went to a negative countdown.
Now that 10.1 has been released, I'm assuming that the server stability is a bit better. The towers are still broken. The system for joining companies and settlements are still not working properly, etc....
To be fair, this game is in early stages of Alpha. Even if the game does go into Early Enrollment pahse in a few days, it is still a game that is in early stages of Alpha. It can not or should not even be called Beta, because it is not comparably developed to 90% of the betas I have ever tested.
Ryan Dancey can choose not to call it Alpha or Beta or paid Beta, and I have no understanding why he wouldn't, it only opens the game up for more criticism. It's as if he believes that if he avoids using industry standard terminology, he thinks it sound like Goblin Works is breaking new ground or something.
I expect and hope they push back the start of Early Enrollment. 10.1 did not advance the game enough to be called MVP. They should set their sights on January 1, 2015 in my opinion.
Played: E&B, SWG, Eve, WoW, COH, WAR, POTBS, AOC, LOTRO, AUTO.A, AO, FE, TR, WWII, MWO, TSW, SWTOR, GW2, NWO, WoP, RUST, LIF, SOA, MORTAL, DFUW, AA, TF, PFO, ALBO, and many many others....
When they start on kickstarter they saw nothing.. but peoples pay for it... Now? there is nothing too:D. Why you paid for this game? How long it tooks now.. and where is the progres? What engine they use?
The game is currently very much in an early alpha stage.. not all the basic mechanics are in place, basically a bare minimum but that is to be expected for an alpha test and that is what they are there for.
Still I find it crazy that they have decided to charge people a monthly sub while developing the game.. I cant see many people paying for that but maybe they dont want that many testers to start with who knows..
I think we're in agreement despite appearances. It means to me: If they can get those features in and tested, then they should probably get some of the others in and complete the combat and other performance testing and DELAY EE until 2015.
By all (alpha) accounts, EE is not ready or if GW says it is it's a raw deal.
Coming back to LiF, uses a modified version of the Torque3D engine. It does look better, but I think GW have to deal much more with the Networking Code for their game design than the LiF devs will have to. And that is where losing out on signing with BigWorld seems to be a major factor in where PFO is right now, I would make a guess. It's more work to get a basic game functioning with lots of players enabled to combat each other in mass brawls over territory, any time, any place, any one.
http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1014633/Classic-Game-Postmortem