Alignment, Reputation and Settlements

whilan

First off, i tried looking on the forums and i'm not seeing any way to create an account to ask on the forums, so i'll start off asking here, until i find a way to create an account.

Anyway, the question I have is several fold but I don't see a clear answer on how things work so maybe someone actually in the game will be able to tell me better how this is implemented.

Here is the situation, I plan on buying this game (yes i'm aware theres a sub fee) in Feb when the price drops to $50 (About where most games prices are) and when I do i plan to make a Dwarven wizard (or whatever that will allow me to be a necromancer, i'll figure this out when the time comes) and I do want to join a settlement. They state that settlements are based on whichever alignment the leader is and you can go one step (in a 9 point grid alignment scale) away from the leader and can still join.

My problem is they also state that reputation will affect which settlements (the leader can put a min rep requirement)  you can enter and do things in.

If i also understand this correctly higher rep settlements get access to better stuff, so they are unlikely to want people who have low rep in their settlements as this affects their rep level as well, lower rep is like having lower stars in fable 2, you lose access to the really good stuff and are forced (the further you go) to worse things (in fable 2 you couldn't get say crisp celery, and all you could get was wilted celery or rancid meat) however unlike fable 2 where you could buy the best stuff and then just trash the town (like any real evil person would do) and you could still have the really powerful stuff, and the best skills (to do said evil deeds) here it sounds like if you want to be really viable, you need high rep and stay high rep, but evil people wouldn't really hang out in high rep (ala get along towns) they hang out in the places of scum and villiany (per GW quote), but to RP that evil character, i'd be forced to gimp my future endevors cause what evil person wouldn't be caught in a high rep town unless they were trying to take it down a notch (which would likely get you kicked out).

Am I wrong in this understanding and you can have a really evil looking settlement (assuming the settlements look different based on alignment of the settlement) but have high rep? I'm just really confused how this all works. Cause right now it sounds like if you want to really play evil, you go to low rep towns which equals to basically gimping yourself.

Any help would be appreciated on how this works, if you have video clips that explain this hat would work even better.

 

Thanks in advance

emota

It's a very good question you pose mate, the settlement system is an interesting one and is likely to effect many parts of the game directly and indirectly as it develops. Ideally you need somebody who was part of the land rush to answer, I sadly don't know enough to answer your question sufficiently.

User836

The official forums are for game owners only. The forums at http://paizo.com/paizo/messageboards/paizoPublishing/licensees/pathfinderOnline are open for all, active and visited by both devs and players and a good place to ask questions.

Alignment and reputation are separate things. Reputation does decrease when you kill other players without "justification". However, there are (will) be many opportunities to fight others without losing reputation, such as while attacking their towers, raiding their outposts, during a declared war or when they are breaking the laws of a settlement (a settlement will be able to set their own laws). Possibly, it will be allowed to kill others who trespass on your territory without losing reputation.

So it will be possible to be both evil and to have a high reputation - reputation means playing along the rules of the game, not necessarily playing a nice or good character in the game world. It is supposed to keep down griefing and other bad sport behaviour while still allowing plenty of evil, mischief and conflict in the game.

Volenibblets

It may sound trite, but have you considered the possibility of getting hold of a copy of the Pathfinder Roleplaying books/PDFs, a bunch of reasonably open-minded friends and a free Roll20 account to plug into google hangouts and play old school 'Paper and Dice' Pathfinder, or something similar? 

After being endlessly frustrated by the long conveyor belt of clone-y garbage games in the last half a dozen or more years, I posed the question to a bunch of mates who were equally ill-disposed to this trend in MMORPGs. Suprisingly, they all leaped at it and it has been a completely unexpected blast which has now extended from Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, briefly Pathfinder, Call of Cthulhu and Traveller. I cannot more highly recommend a better alternative way to spend any MMORPG-o-phile's time. I still keep an eye out for upcoming games like this but it would be hard to return to what now feels like an inferior format unless it really offered something new. Anyhoo, just my five cents...      

whilan

Originally posted by User836

The official forums are for game owners only. The forums at http://paizo.com/paizo/messageboards/paizoPublishing/licensees/pathfinderOnline are open for all, active and visited by both devs and players and a good place to ask questions.

Alignment and reputation are separate things. Reputation does decrease when you kill other players without "justification". However, there are (will) be many opportunities to fight others without losing reputation, such as while attacking their towers, raiding their outposts, during a declared war or when they are breaking the laws of a settlement (a settlement will be able to set their own laws). Possibly, it will be allowed to kill others who trespass on your territory without losing reputation.

So it will be possible to be both evil and to have a high reputation - reputation means playing along the rules of the game, not necessarily playing a nice or good character in the game world. It is supposed to keep down griefing and other bad sport behaviour while still allowing plenty of evil, mischief and conflict in the game.

This makes sense and seems like it goes along with what i understand of the game, so rep is just tied whether you are a good or bad player (ie if you do stuff that is generally against the rules, camping people constantly just killing low levels you lose rep but if you are evil you can still be high rep, got it. However this brings me to my second part, do towns look different depending on rep levels, lets see if i can provide a clip which will better explain what i mean.

Here is the video in question: 

Does a High rep town look like the first half of the video and a low rep town look like the last half? or can a high rep town look like both based on alignment set or are they all the same look?  naturally i'm not expecting those extremes just use that as a guideline.

whilan

Originally posted by Volenibblets

It may sound trite, but have you considered the possibility of getting hold of a copy of the Pathfinder Roleplaying books/PDFs, a bunch of reasonably open-minded friends and a free Roll20 account to plug into google hangouts and play old school 'Paper and Dice' Pathfinder, or something similar? 

After being endlessly frustrated by the long conveyor belt of clone-y garbage games in the last half a dozen or more years, I posed the question to a bunch of mates who were equally ill-disposed to this trend in MMORPGs. Suprisingly, they all leaped at it and it has been a completely unexpected blast which has now extended from Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, briefly Pathfinder, Call of Cthulhu and Traveller. I cannot more highly recommend a better alternative way to spend any MMORPG-o-phile's time. I still keep an eye out for upcoming games like this but it would be hard to return to what now feels like an inferior format unless it really offered something new. Anyhoo, just my five cents...      

While i appreciate the suggestion, i'm not sure this is really relavent as that is a tabletop game and while based on it, may not follow the actual way it's implemented in game.

User836

Originally posted by whilan

[...]

This makes sense and seems like it goes along with what i understand of the game, so rep is just tied whether you are a good or bad player (ie if you do stuff that is generally against the rules, camping people constantly just killing low levels you lose rep but if you are evil you can still be high rep, got it. However this brings me to my second part, do towns look different depending on rep levels, lets see if i can provide a clip which will better explain what i mean.Does a High rep town look like the first half of the video and a low rep town look like the last half? or can a high rep town look like both based on alignment set or are they all the same look?  naturally i'm not expecting those extremes just use that as a guideline.

At the moment, the settlements all look very similar except for some variety in the facilities available. The layout of the settlements are modular and designed by the devs, players can't decide where they want to place which building.

It sounds like the plan for later on is that players can construct the buildings they choose in certain "slots" within the borders of the settlement. A good settlement may build a cathedral while an evil one may build an assassins guild for example. Low reputation settlements will be limited in what they may build so I guess they will look smaller and less developed. I wouldn't be surprised if the community will be demanding different visual options for the different buildings so that you can create "themed" settlements sometime in the future. Please note that none of this is in the game right now, the current state is very basic and there is no real customization of how settlements look available to players.

whilan

Originally posted by User836

Originally posted by whilan

[...]

This makes sense and seems like it goes along with what i understand of the game, so rep is just tied whether you are a good or bad player (ie if you do stuff that is generally against the rules, camping people constantly just killing low levels you lose rep but if you are evil you can still be high rep, got it. However this brings me to my second part, do towns look different depending on rep levels, lets see if i can provide a clip which will better explain what i mean.Does a High rep town look like the first half of the video and a low rep town look like the last half? or can a high rep town look like both based on alignment set or are they all the same look?  naturally i'm not expecting those extremes just use that as a guideline.

At the moment, the settlements all look very similar except for some variety in the facilities available. The layout of the settlements are modular and designed by the devs, players can't decide where they want to place which building.

It sounds like the plan for later on is that players can construct the buildings they choose in certain "slots" within the borders of the settlement. A good settlement may build a cathedral while an evil one may build an assassins guild for example. Low reputation settlements will be limited in what they may build so I guess they will look smaller and less developed. I wouldn't be surprised if the community will be demanding different visual options for the different buildings so that you can create "themed" settlements sometime in the future. Please note that none of this is in the game right now, the current state is very basic and there is no real customization of how settlements look available to players.

Okay that clears it up, hopefully like you say they get more in but this will work for now, thanks a lot.

Fanndis_Goldbraid

January 30th appears to be the day of the "golden ticket", using Ryan Dancey's post, shown below:

"If you logged in for the first time on the last day of the first month you'd get backdated XP to the start of Early Enrollment and your first month of game time would expire 30 days after your first login. So yes, if you time it right you could get effectively 2 months-1 day of XP for 1 month's game time." (This is posted in the game forum but my paste function Is not happy here for some reason.)

They do expect a mild increase of players who want to check it out, on or about 30 January, so it should be a fun time to look for new players and encourage them to join a settlement.

Fanndis of Forgeholm