Why PFO Matters

wmmarcellino · May 2015

Why PFO Matters:

My interest in PFO is related to my larger dissatisfaction with MMOs. MMOs are my favorite game genre because I'm a social gamer, but the two models for MMOs are currently broken:

Theme-park models are broken, because players can chew through content faster than developers can create new content. That's where the grind template comes in, because making you grind the same 6 dungeons in a loop for to turn in to get higher armor, so as to loop higher levels of the dungeons for , and so on. It doesn’t matter who you are (Bioware)—only WoW had enough of a revenue stream and player base to support the content stream, and
Sandbox models are currently broken--dumping people into a box with tools to grief/kill each other creates greifing/murder sims. Because devs haven't done careful design work to make pro-social behavior necessary to success, sandboxes tend towards toxic behavior.

Currently two developers recognize this, and have articulated plans to fix the broken models.

EQ Next plans to fix theme-parks by leveraging procedural generation and player-base crowd sourcing to make new content. I don't know if it will work, but it is a creative attempt, and is not doing the exact same thing hoping there will magically be a different outcome. At least they recognize the problem and offer a solution.
Pathfinder Online wants to fix sandboxes by a) making the interactions meaningful, and b)steering players away from toxic interactions.
1. Since exp comes automatically over time, the way you progress is not by grinding mobs, but by developing your settlement. I have spent the year gathering resources for our crafters, crafting essential items for our warriors (as a jeweler I make the essential "trophy charms" that sort of act like spellbooks for fighter special maneuvers), making friends and allies from other settlements, grinding PvE escalations for spells/recipes and victory markers (it's kinda fun, but it is also kind of grindy), and expanding/protecting (and recently losing) the territory that gates how high the settlement can train (this usually involves PvP).
2. One pretty big innovation in reducing toxic behavior between players is to move the stakes for competition from player vs player to settlement vs. settlement interaction. It is possible for Joe player and Susie player to fight, and it does happen sometimes. But since the rewards aren’t high on average, and generally risks economic loss--the power curve is fairly flat, everyone is vulnerable and dies on occasion, thus degrading your gear—it's not the focus. So you don't want to fight for the hell of it. But at the settlement level it can make a lot of sense--like "stay the f*ck out of our area," "That tower is ours not yours," strategically blocking an enemy settlement from a resource area, etc. And then the flip side is you find settlements you can ally with, and who you can trade raw goods or training with, because no settlement can make and train everything they need--there's forced interdependence. So far this year, I've been randomly PK'd (both times it was evil guys from Golgotha) a total of two times. Whereas I've had six settlement level battles (half-hour to 3 hour) involving lots of players from varies allied settlements. So the system seems to be working well, at least in my experience,

What's Currently Working in PFO:

PFO offers incredible complexity in character design. Characters are completely customizable, and you usually end up with a mix of various role features: e.g. my healer-focused cleric is actually a cleric 10/ fighter 8. You can have pretty powerful, deep synergies if you build your character right, but you can also build a pretty inefficient character
The settlement system works. We are busily building up our holdings and outposts, gathering the raw bulk goods we will need to maintain our settlement. And to do that, we are busily gathering victory markers from defeating PvE escalations, and gathering lots of raw resources to craft the holdings/outposts from. And a couple of us who love spreadsheets are busily figuring out the optimal way to build, mix, and match those holdings/outposts—settlement building is complex and requires a lot of thought.
Economic loop: The economic loop works, and is integral to the game. I and a lot of others like harvesting resources, and also running PvE groups to gather more mats and recipes. And we turn those over to our crafters, who in turn make us better gear. Which in turn lets us control territory, so we can train higher, and gather more resources, kill tougher stuff, and so on. That loop is fun and works.
Crafting works: It is meaningful to be a crafter. Raw materials and recipes can drop from mobs, but not finished end items. So crafting is a 100% viable and very rewarding career path. I think this is the closest I've seen to how cool crafting was in SWG. I am the only jeweler in my settlement, and they need me to make trophy charms, otherwise our fighters would be totally gimped. I really like feeling essential that way. I also think making crafting interdependent is a great idea. You cannot craft things on your own after a few levels. I make finished, magical jewelry, so that means I have to depend on a gemcutter and smith to make me refined gems and metal. Some people hate that you can't make stuff on your own, but I see how powerfully social it is.
PvP: PvP happens, and again there is a lot of intricacy. You have to understand how PvP combat works to correctly construct your character, and there are tradeoffs: a good gatherer or crafter won't be able to PvP well, and while there is a lot of overlap between a PvE and PvP build, there is still some differences. In particular, different attacks apply different effects on the target, and those effects can be exploited. So if you and your settlement mates have the right mix of classes/attacks, and understand who can apply/exploit what effects, you can have a pretty powerful synergistic effect, and that is critical in PvP.
The game supports sociality. The power curve is low, and so new characters can jump in and start to contribute. The interdependence of combat effects means you need to work with diversity and as a team in PvP. The crafting system means you have to be social within and between settlements 1)within the settlement, gatherers, crafters, and adventurers work together in and economic loop, and 2) between settlements you have to trade: e.g. my settlement, Ozem's Vigil, has to depend on our buddies in Forgeholm and Alderwag to make some of the stuff we need, and they need us also.

What Needs Work:

PvE Content. Escalations are pretty much it, and they are kind of boring, kind of grindy, although they are adding some variety in (e.g. elementals in ver. 8). No dungeons, no real quests, just grinding down escalations in the hope you get a good recipe/spell, and victory tokens for killing the boss.
Combat UI and movement: Currently, parts of the interface, and movement mechanics need work. Targeting doesn't work well (although they have improved the size of the hit box). But that has caused other problems, in particular because the combat UI is inexplicably pass-thru: if you click on a combat button and a friendly player is right in front of you, your click BOTH activates the ability and targets your friend, so friendly fire is incredibly easy in melee. That also happens with mouse-look—you are using mouse-look to turn to one side as someone runs past you, and so you inadvertently target them, and friendly fire ensues. I think you have to have a multi-button mouse to play this game.
HUD/Targeting. PvP an be very confusing, and one of the more lacking features is it is hard to tell friend from foe. The models are generic, there's no way to tell allies/build raids beyond your party, and so basically it can be very easy to fire at the wrong people. There is a HUD display of the target's name and company, but it is tiny and at the top border of the screen, so you have to look up, away from what you are doing, to read it. It's more like a Head Way too Far Up Display (HWtFUD).
Variety in Racial Choices. Right now it is human, elf, and dwarf. Kind of blah.

What's Pretty Broken:

Graphics. What can I say? Graphics are…not good, and while I am confident they will be one day, if good graphics are essential to your gaming experience, PFO is not a good choice for you.
Character Models. I guess this is part of the graphics, but it's bad enough and important in it's own way to be worth mentioning. Models are incredibly generic, some are inexplicably ugly (people have quit the game over how ugly elves are), and they just aren't good. Basically you can be a generic male of female human/dwarf/elf. And the armor has low variety, so you end up with the same armor look for each tier/race/type. There's a lot of elf maids running around with the exact same Sexy Santa's Helper outfit…that are supposed to be wizard robes.
Lack of Roles. Right now you can be a fighter, cleric, wizard or rogue. It sounds like we are still months away from introducing any new roles (e.g. Barbarians, Paladins, etc). That kind of stinks. I understand that this is part of the development map, but still it bums me out.
Chat/UI. The game is missing some of the most basic chat and UI functions. You can't cut and paste into chat windows. There's no friends list. If you want to chat with someone or invite them, that means typing their incredibly stupid, long three name, name. You can't easily adjust or configure the UI (although thank God they recently changed the UI graphics so it close to readable now). Heck, you can't even tab between the username/password fields. It's like someone said "How can we make the UI and interaction features like Meridian 59, except way, way worse?"
Population. It's low, way lower than I like. It feels like since ver. 8 I'm seeing an uptick in population, at least up in the North. But I still worry a lot about how few folks there are in the game. I think it's matter of sustaining a minimum population as the game steadily improves in features.

Which brings to another important thing that's working well:

Steady, Consistent Improvement. Since the game launched early this year, there have been 8 EE release versions, and each one has been a big improvement. Seriously, the game still has a long way to go, but man has it improved. The delta is positive, consistent, and steady, and that's what makes me optimistic. So far, the developers have absolutely been faithful and acted as they spoke.

If you haven't tried PFO, and maybe now get why this game matters, and has the potential to help fix what's wrong with MMOs, and help us get back to the kind of fun we had with UO and EQ, then I recommend giving it a try—contact me for a buddy key to try the game for 15 days for free. And if you are one of those few that long to be a paladin, or someone who wants to support the holy work of lawful good paladins and clerics, then please contact us at Ozem's Vigil. We're looking for a few good women (and men!). http://ozemsvigil.guildlaunch.com/

Noxronin11111 · May 2015

Originally posted by wmmarcellino
Why PFO Matters:

My interest in PFO is related to my larger dissatisfaction with MMOs. MMOs are my favorite game genre because I'm a social gamer, but the two models for MMOs are currently broken:

Theme-park models are broken, because players can chew through content faster than developers can create new content. That's where the grind template comes in, because making you grind the same 6 dungeons in a loop for to turn in to get higher armor, so as to loop higher levels of the dungeons for , and so on. It doesn’t matter who you are (Bioware)—only WoW had enough of a revenue stream and player base to support the content stream, and

Sandbox models are currently broken--dumping people into a box with tools to grief/kill each other creates greifing/murder sims. Because devs haven't done careful design work to make pro-social behavior necessary to success, sandboxes tend towards toxic behavior.

Currently two developers recognize this, and have articulated plans to fix the broken models.

EQ Next plans to fix theme-parks by leveraging procedural generation and player-base crowd sourcing to make new content. I don't know if it will work, but it is a creative attempt, and is not doing the exact same thing hoping there will magically be a different outcome. At least they recognize the problem and offer a solution.

Pathfinder Online wants to fix sandboxes by a) making the interactions meaningful, and b)steering players away from toxic interactions.

Since exp comes automatically over time, the way you progress is not by grinding mobs, but by developing your settlement. I have spent the year gathering resources for our crafters, crafting essential items for our warriors (as a jeweler I make the essential "trophy charms" that sort of act like spellbooks for fighter special maneuvers), making friends and allies from other settlements, grinding PvE escalations for spells/recipes and victory markers (it's kinda fun, but it is also kind of grindy), and expanding/protecting (and recently losing) the territory that gates how high the settlement can train (this usually involves PvP).

One pretty big innovation in reducing toxic behavior between players is to move the stakes for competition from player vs player to settlement vs. settlement interaction. It is possible for Joe player and Susie player to fight, and it does happen sometimes. But since the rewards aren’t high on average, and generally risks economic loss--the power curve is fairly flat, everyone is vulnerable and dies on occasion, thus degrading your gear—it's not the focus. So you don't want to fight for the hell of it. But at the settlement level it can make a lot of sense--like "stay the f*ck out of our area," "That tower is ours not yours," strategically blocking an enemy settlement from a resource area, etc. And then the flip side is you find settlements you can ally with, and who you can trade raw goods or training with, because no settlement can make and train everything they need--there's forced interdependence. So far this year, I've been randomly PK'd (both times it was evil guys from Golgotha) a total of two times. Whereas I've had six settlement level battles (half-hour to 3 hour) involving lots of players from varies allied settlements. So the system seems to be working well, at least in my experience,

What's Currently Working in PFO:

PFO offers incredible complexity in character design. Characters are completely customizable, and you usually end up with a mix of various role features: e.g. my healer-focused cleric is actually a cleric 10/ fighter 8. You can have pretty powerful, deep synergies if you build your character right, but you can also build a pretty inefficient character

The settlement system works. We are busily building up our holdings and outposts, gathering the raw bulk goods we will need to maintain our settlement. And to do that, we are busily gathering victory markers from defeating PvE escalations, and gathering lots of raw resources to craft the holdings/outposts from. And a couple of us who love spreadsheets are busily figuring out the optimal way to build, mix, and match those holdings/outposts—settlement building is complex and requires a lot of thought.

Economic loop: The economic loop works, and is integral to the game. I and a lot of others like harvesting resources, and also running PvE groups to gather more mats and recipes. And we turn those over to our crafters, who in turn make us better gear. Which in turn lets us control territory, so we can train higher, and gather more resources, kill tougher stuff, and so on. That loop is fun and works.

Crafting works: It is meaningful to be a crafter. Raw materials and recipes can drop from mobs, but not finished end items. So crafting is a 100% viable and very rewarding career path. I think this is the closest I've seen to how cool crafting was in SWG. I am the only jeweler in my settlement, and they need me to make trophy charms, otherwise our fighters would be totally gimped. I really like feeling essential that way. I also think making crafting interdependent is a great idea. You cannot craft things on your own after a few levels. I make finished, magical jewelry, so that means I have to depend on a gemcutter and smith to make me refined gems and metal. Some people hate that you can't make stuff on your own, but I see how powerfully social it is.

PvP: PvP happens, and again there is a lot of intricacy. You have to understand how PvP combat works to correctly construct your character, and there are tradeoffs: a good gatherer or crafter won't be able to PvP well, and while there is a lot of overlap between a PvE and PvP build, there is still some differences. In particular, different attacks apply different effects on the target, and those effects can be exploited. So if you and your settlement mates have the right mix of classes/attacks, and understand who can apply/exploit what effects, you can have a pretty powerful synergistic effect, and that is critical in PvP.

The game supports sociality. The power curve is low, and so new characters can jump in and start to contribute. The interdependence of combat effects means you need to work with diversity and as a team in PvP. The crafting system means you have to be social within and between settlements 1)within the settlement, gatherers, crafters, and adventurers work together in and economic loop, and 2) between settlements you have to trade: e.g. my settlement, Ozem's Vigil, has to depend on our buddies in Forgeholm and Alderwag to make some of the stuff we need, and they need us also.

What Needs Work:

PvE Content. Escalations are pretty much it, and they are kind of boring, kind of grindy, although they are adding some variety in (e.g. elementals in ver. 8). No dungeons, no real quests, just grinding down escalations in the hope you get a good recipe/spell, and victory tokens for killing the boss.

Combat UI and movement: Currently, parts of the interface, and movement mechanics need work. Targeting doesn't work well (although they have improved the size of the hit box). But that has caused other problems, in particular because the combat UI is inexplicably pass-thru: if you click on a combat button and a friendly player is right in front of you, your click BOTH activates the ability and targets your friend, so friendly fire is incredibly easy in melee. That also happens with mouse-look—you are using mouse-look to turn to one side as someone runs past you, and so you inadvertently target them, and friendly fire ensues. I think you have to have a multi-button mouse to play this game.

HUD/Targeting. PvP an be very confusing, and one of the more lacking features is it is hard to tell friend from foe. The models are generic, there's no way to tell allies/build raids beyond your party, and so basically it can be very easy to fire at the wrong people. There is a HUD display of the target's name and company, but it is tiny and at the top border of the screen, so you have to look up, away from what you are doing, to read it. It's more like a Head Way too Far Up Display (HWtFUD).

Variety in Racial Choices. Right now it is human, elf, and dwarf. Kind of blah.

What's Pretty Broken:

Graphics. What can I say? Graphics are…not good, and while I am confident they will be one day, if good graphics are essential to your gaming experience, PFO is not a good choice for you.

Character Models. I guess this is part of the graphics, but it's bad enough and important in it's own way to be worth mentioning. Models are incredibly generic, some are inexplicably ugly (people have quit the game over how ugly elves are), and they just aren't good. Basically you can be a generic male of female human/dwarf/elf. And the armor has low variety, so you end up with the same armor look for each tier/race/type. There's a lot of elf maids running around with the exact same Sexy Santa's Helper outfit…that are supposed to be wizard robes.

Lack of Roles. Right now you can be a fighter, cleric, wizard or rogue. It sounds like we are still months away from introducing any new roles (e.g. Barbarians, Paladins, etc). That kind of stinks. I understand that this is part of the development map, but still it bums me out.

Chat/UI. The game is missing some of the most basic chat and UI functions. You can't cut and paste into chat windows. There's no friends list. If you want to chat with someone or invite them, that means typing their incredibly stupid, long three name, name. You can't easily adjust or configure the UI (although thank God they recently changed the UI graphics so it close to readable now). Heck, you can't even tab between the username/password fields. It's like someone said "How can we make the UI and interaction features like Meridian 59, except way, way worse?"

Population. It's low, way lower than I like. It feels like since ver. 8 I'm seeing an uptick in population, at least up in the North. But I still worry a lot about how few folks there are in the game. I think it's matter of sustaining a minimum population as the game steadily improves in features.

Which brings to another important thing that's working well:

Steady, Consistent Improvement. Since the game launched early this year, there have been 8 EE release versions, and each one has been a big improvement. Seriously, the game still has a long way to go, but man has it improved. The delta is positive, consistent, and steady, and that's what makes me optimistic. So far, the developers have absolutely been faithful and acted as they spoke.

If you haven't tried PFO, and maybe now get why this game matters, and has the potential to help fix what's wrong with MMOs, and help us get back to the kind of fun we had with UO and EQ, then I recommend giving it a try—contact me for a buddy key to try the game for 15 days for free. And if you are one of those few that long to be a paladin, or someone who wants to support the holy work of lawful good paladins and clerics, then please contact us at Ozem's Vigil. We're looking for a few good women (and men!). http://ozemsvigil.guildlaunch.com/

Very nice writeup and all you wrote is true but i have to say while PvE doesnt have much variety yet it is fun if you do it with friends and unlike most other MMOs doing things in group (including PvE) is a LOT more rewarding. It very much reminds me of early EQ days where grinding for hours was fun because of social interaction with other people.

I myself asked on this forum for a buddy key around 1 week ago and someone sent me and i tried the game.Today i am steadily advancing in the game i have complete understanding of mechanics and i am surrounded with nice people that i enjoy playing with. I upgraded my account to full Early Enrollment and i see myself playing this game for many more years.

If anyone tries the game out make sure to join Pathfinder University (PFU) company (PFO version of guild) that is dedicated to helping new players and explaining the game to you.

See you in Golarion!

goboygo · May 2015

Nox, Being the second poster in this thread did you have to repost quote his entire post haha?

OP you make the game sound amazing, but your right graphically and performance wise there has been little to no development resources spent there, just the bare minimum to deliver content.

I tried it but even with a high end gaming rig the game ran so poorly I couldn't deal with it, hurt my eyes after 5 mins. So choppy. The Unity engine is a rough choice for a big game world unless your willing to focus allot of resource's on optimization. Out of the box its horribly inefficient for something like an MMO.

I'm hoping they can optimize the game at some point, I might try it again.

Slapshot1188 · May 2015

Every 2 bit developer makes the same claims. They are all the savior of the MMO genre. Somehow I don't see PFO as fitting that. Let's see if they make it another year and what the product looks like at that point.

Edit to add: If you think that the success of a GAME matters... Not really sure what I can say about that... other than.. IT'S A GAME!

maskedweasel · May 2015

Originally posted by Slapshot1188
Every 2 bit developer makes the same claims. They are all the savior of the MMO genre. Somehow I don't see PFO as fitting that. Let's see if they make it another year and what the product looks like at that point.

I just feel like the game, however amazing it sounded when I backed it originally, just isn't be handled well with their business model. I'm all for a sub, but the game isn't feature complete, and my time "ran out" before I even created my first character and I was forced to "sub" ... I mean ... I can't be bothered trying to keep up with whats been going on with it these days.

I like the ideas they presented, I liked their focus -- but I don't like how they've handled the "release" of this game.

Howbadisbad · May 2015

Originally posted by wmmarcellino
Sandbox models are currently broken--dumping people into a box with tools to grief/kill each other creates greifing/murder sims.

Care to explain what games you are alluding to? I have played many sandbox MMOs and I never felt that any of them were "greifing/murder simulators".

Of course catering to unfounded shibboleth like sandboxes are murder simulators Is a lot easier than making real points isn't it?

Slapshot1188 · May 2015

Originally posted by maskedweasel
Originally posted by Slapshot1188
Every 2 bit developer makes the same claims. They are all the savior of the MMO genre. Somehow I don't see PFO as fitting that. Let's see if they make it another year and what the product looks like at that point.

I just feel like the game, however amazing it sounded when I backed it originally, just isn't be handled well with their business model. I'm all for a sub, but the game isn't feature complete, and my time "ran out" before I even created my first character and I was forced to "sub" ... I mean ... I can't be bothered trying to keep up with whats been going on with it these days.

I like the ideas they presented, I liked their focus -- but I don't like how they've handled the "release" of this game.

I would agree with that. Their IDEAS were fantastic, but so are most developer presentations. It's the execution that makes or breaks a game and these guys bit off way more than they can chew. I'm not in any way exaggerating when I say that I believe most folks will take a look at what they have produced, and take a look at their business model of buy the box, pay a sub, plus cash shop and laugh hysterically.

I think THAT is what matters most about PFO. Maybe the next guy will learn from their mistakes and not come up with the same concept of combining box purchase, sub, cash shop and NO WIPES for a game that is very, very far from mass public consumption. THAT is why PFO matter. The gaming population is saying LOUD AND CLEAR that they have pushed the line of what is acceptable too far. THAT is why the CEO has asked his fans to come to this forum and plead their case.

I will be shocked if this game has not changed their business model in the next few months. The cash grab this early in production is a massive mistake.

Wizardry · May 2015

OP....

I know it is easy to believe what looks good on paper but as for NEXT and SOE,do not believe for one minute they are doing anything to help the genre.They are doing what works best for them,what makes for a less costly game to make and operate.

I can't give any real input on PO because,well it's not a game yet and i have not played it,nor have i dealt with that team for a long period of time to understand how they operate.

Yes Theme parks are a brutal design,it is like they create content that will never have friends on the same content unless they play at the exact same times.Then to mask one mistake in game design they make it solo content,so it is the anti mmo design,just bad game design all around.

Without going into every single detail and topic,just one makes no sense.

Lets just say by example you are a Warrior,why on earth would you become a better Warrior overtime just because you crafted or made some improvements to your homestead?If anything that would be a sort of carpentry skill or building skill or market skill or crafting skill,in no way you would become a more experienced Warrior.

That idea alone makes me cringe ,thinking of such bad game designers,it reminds me of how some games hand out free xp just because you stepped on a new pixel of ground,it is retarded and that is putting it mildly.

Bottom line is you NEVER fix one mistake or bad design by creating another bad design.Yes you can say "at least they recognize the problems and trying to address them",however you still have to do it right.

I am not knocking on PO<i really don't know it that well,i just see so many bad ideas crop into games that makes me shake my head..what was that guy thinking.

Burntvet · May 2015

Personally, I am tired about hearing how every game is going to be "the next big thing" only to have something incomplete/broken/unfinished hit the market. And I am tired to death about hearing about "potential". If something is "potentially good", that means it sucks now.

If a company wants my money, they can put out a "finished" product that is good. Twice as much when they are charging a sub fee + box price (which I personally have no problem paying).

But the days when I (and a lot of other people, I think) will accept paying full price for half a game, are pretty much over at this point.

wmmarcellino · May 2015

Originally posted by Wizardry OP.... I know it is easy to believe what looks good on paper but as for NEXT and SOE,do not believe for one minute they are doing anything to help the genre.They are doing what works best for them,what makes for a less costly game to make and operate.

Look, I have no idea if EQ Next is going to work and solve this problem. What I'm saying is that they at least have recognized the problem and are offering some kind of solution. Knowing that there is a problem, and trying to solve the problem, at least gives you a shot at solving the problem. How many times will there be a RIFT, or SWTOR, or some other attempt where they are like, "We are going to use the exact same model that keeps failing. We will just do our more gooder."

Slapshot1188 · May 2015

Originally posted by Burntvet
Personally, I am tired about hearing how every game is going to be "the next big thing" only to have something incomplete/broken/unfinished hit the market. And I am tired to death about hearing about "potential". If something is "potentially good", that means it sucks now.

Could not possibly agree more!

wmmarcellino · May 2015

Originally posted by goboygo
Nox, Being the second poster in this thread did you have to repost quote his entire post haha?

OP you make the game sound amazing, but your right graphically and performance wise there has been little to no development resources spent there, just the bare minimum to deliver content.

I tried it but even with a high end gaming rig the game ran so poorly I couldn't deal with it, hurt my eyes after 5 mins. So choppy. The Unity engine is a rough choice for a big game world unless your willing to focus allot of resource's on optimization. Out of the box its horribly inefficient for something like an MMO.

I'm hoping they can optimize the game at some point, I might try it again.

Can't argue with you. Performance has improved, but it is still way sub-optimal, and graphics are...not good. For someone who wants good gameplay AND good graphics performance, the right choice is to wait a year or so and see how things look.

aesperus · May 2015

I think PFO has a lot of potential (cautiously optimistic)

However, the whole sandbox vs. themepark is entirely a red herring. The problems MMOs face are mostly problems created from outside the genre. We (gamers) have been conditioned towards once-off disposable content. This has bled into every genre of gaming (MMOs included), and thus the problem of 'how best to deliver frequent / disposable content' was born.

Some games do this through modding, some through bite-sized content updates, some through player-generated content.

None of these solutions are restricted to themeparks nor sandbox models. Furthermore there are examples of all in each type of game.

It'll be interesting to see what (if anything) can recapture that 'play this game for 10 years' type of enjoyment. I'm mostly convinced the audience has changed too much for that to still work. There are too many games, too many flashy new releases, and a brand new game is always going to be more exciting than playing the same thing you've already been enjoying.

I really do hope this game breaks the mold, though. It has a lot of really good concepts, mechanics, and ideas that I've been wanting to implement into an MMO for close to a decade now.

Charlie.Cheswick · May 2015

This game is not as bad as some of the haters will say.

It does need work. And yes, huge potential.

#PFOlivesmatter

mgilbrtsn · May 2015

Very good write up. Refreshing to see so well a thought out opinion.... and I include my sad opinions in that. I'm not sure I'm a believer yet, but you've definitely given me some food for thought.

Bringslite · May 2015

Originally posted by Wizardry

Lets just say by example you are a Warrior,why on earth would you become a better Warrior overtime just because you crafted or made some improvements to your homestead?If anything that would be a sort of carpentry skill or building skill or market skill or crafting skill,in no way you would become a more experienced Warrior.

<i p="" thinking.

Bringslite · May 2015

Uhm... neat. PMs sent to me end up with duplicate repeats anywhere from 2 to 10 messages.

When I try reply to a PM, I get something about unrecognized text before I can enter any kind of text at all.

And... a nice reply to the quote above turns out like that^^^^ up there.

Dullahan · May 2015

Originally posted by Howbadisbad

Originally posted by wmmarcellino
Sandbox models are currently broken--dumping people into a box with tools to grief/kill each other creates greifing/murder sims.

Care to explain what games you are alluding to? I have played many sandbox MMOs and I never felt that any of them were "greifing/murder simulators".

Of course catering to unfounded shibboleth like sandboxes are murder simulators Is a lot easier than making real points isn't it?

Both Darkfail and Mortal Online.

I'll do you one better and tell you, its not so much creating a murder simulator that is the problem with sandbox games, but an overall lack of a reason to play, which in turn leaves players doing little else than fighting for nothing.

Sandbox games in general are just lack the feel of the virtual world they are trying to create, largely because people think that if you just give the players the tools, they will somehow create some glorious sim world where everyone is having a great time. In reality, you need to create a virtual world, complete with content, npcs, factions and a world that has fun things to do and achieve, and then include those "tools" that allow the players to ALSO be the content. If there aren't reasons for players to work together, and things for players to fight over that are related to their personal advancement, players are going to treat the game like an oversized PvP arena until there isn't enough people left to kill to keep even the hardcores interested.

Bluddwolf · May 2015

Originally posted by Dullahan
Originally posted by Howbadisbad

Originally posted by wmmarcellino
Sandbox models are currently broken--dumping people into a box with tools to grief/kill each other creates greifing/murder sims.

Care to explain what games you are alluding to? I have played many sandbox MMOs and I never felt that any of them were "greifing/murder simulators".

Of course catering to unfounded shibboleth like sandboxes are murder simulators Is a lot easier than making real points isn't it?

Both Darkfail and Mortal Online.

I'll do you one better and tell you, its not so much creating a murder simulator that is the problem with sandbox games, but an overall lack of a reason to play, which in turn leaves players doing little else than fighting for nothing.

Sandbox games in general are just lack the feel of the virtual world they are trying to create, largely because people think that if you just give the players the tools, they will somehow create some glorious sim world where everyone is having a great time.

I played Darkfall UW, and it did not strike me as a murder sim. Most MMOs that are depicted as being murder sims either aren't or are designed to be that.

Survival Horror sandboxes, ie. Rust, are designed to be that. Albion Online, although I have not play it yet, is designed to be a brutal, PVP experience.

But lets not kid the readers, there is no expectation on the part of a developer to create a game / world where everyone is having a great time. As soon as you add in or remove completely PVP, some people are not going to have a good time.

Sandboxes aren't broken, just player expectations or the ability to make an accurate judgement of "is this game for me?" is broken.

Even with a game like PFO, with very little PVP going on (lets be honest now, that is true), there are those that post threads complaining when they are unexpectantly killed, and especially so when they are looted. Open World PVP does not mean the same thing to them, when it happens to them.

To the OP, this thread reads almost like a desperate plea to save this game. First we had the plea for current players to advertise and recruit for the game. Now we have this, "PFO is too important to fail, the genre of MMOs is counting on it".

PFO will likely not succeed because Goblin Works / Ryan Dancey are not addressing its major flaws, at all or in a timely manner.

1. Business model of Box sale + Subscription for what most perceive as an Alpha (and an early stage one) has been widely criticized and rejected.

2. PFO not providing a close enough representation to its IP, has been widely criticized and rejected.

3. Both the graphics and the UI / game mechanics are "sub par" (to use the OP's own words), especially for a game that the CEO claims is not in Alpha and is fully featured.

Players will often say, "I'll play a game with good game mechanics but with bad graphics, any day". PFO presently has neither, and the population shows it.

Since you want to turn PFO into a savior of the genre, lets break this down a bit.

Theme Park MMO

Sandbox MMO

PVE Content

PVP Content

Exploration Content

Social Interaction Content and or tools (RP)

Of these elements of an MMO:

Which if any does PFO excel in?

What can be said to be "innovative" in any of those areas?

cheyane · May 2015

I read what you wrote. I am very sorry to say not much of it really interest me that much. I know that sounds pretty shallow but roles are very important to me and I enjoy beating dungeons and stuff. I enjoyed City of Villains/Heroes the most and vanilla WoW and of course Everquest but I think Everquest is more nostalgia than anything. I cannot say I am happy about how the genre is evolving or as some say devolving but Pathfinder is not for me.

While reading about camp checks and how one can get banned in the P99 servers and how dungeons probably are camped 24/7 I realised in my heart of hearts I do not enjoy Everquest the way it was anymore either.

Good luck on your game.

Noxronin11111 · May 2015

Originally posted by goboygo
Nox, Being the second poster in this thread did you have to repost quote his entire post haha?

OP you make the game sound amazing, but your right graphically and performance wise there has been little to no development resources spent there, just the bare minimum to deliver content.

I tried it but even with a high end gaming rig the game ran so poorly I couldn't deal with it, hurt my eyes after 5 mins. So choppy. The Unity engine is a rough choice for a big game world unless your willing to focus allot of resource's on optimization. Out of the box its horribly inefficient for something like an MMO.

I'm hoping they can optimize the game at some point, I might try it again.

Game uses Unity but pretty much all of it was written from scratch including graphics and net code.

wmmarcellino · May 2015

Originally posted by cheyane
I read what you wrote. I am very sorry to say not much of it really interest me that much. I know that sounds pretty shallow but roles are very important to me and I enjoy beating dungeons and stuff. I enjoyed City of Villains/Heroes the most and vanilla WoW and of course Everquest but I think Everquest is more nostalgia than anything. I cannot say I am happy about how the genre is evolving or as some say devolving but Pathfinder is not for me.

While reading about camp checks and how one can get banned in the P99 servers and how dungeons probably are camped 24/7 I realised in my heart of hearts I do not enjoy Everquest the way it was anymore either.

Good luck on your game.

There's nothing shallow about your response at all cheyane. Like any game, this offers a certain kind of experience, and it's not going to match everyone's desired gaming experience.

BTW, I enjoyed City of Heroes a lot too. It didn't offer the kind of long term social gaming experience I had in EQ, but I did enjoy building my hero, completing missions, etc. I have had a somewhat similar experience in DCU Online--it's fun (for me at least) to pick up once in a while, but not my long-term home.

Good luck in your gaming!

MrSnuffles · May 2015

Originally posted by Noxronin11111
Originally posted by goboygo
Nox, Being the second poster in this thread did you have to repost quote his entire post haha?

OP you make the game sound amazing, but your right graphically and performance wise there has been little to no development resources spent there, just the bare minimum to deliver content.

I tried it but even with a high end gaming rig the game ran so poorly I couldn't deal with it, hurt my eyes after 5 mins. So choppy. The Unity engine is a rough choice for a big game world unless your willing to focus allot of resource's on optimization. Out of the box its horribly inefficient for something like an MMO.

I'm hoping they can optimize the game at some point, I might try it again.

Game uses Unity but pretty much all of it was written from scratch including graphics and net code.

And you know this because you are a PFO developer. I don't think so.

If they "wrote the graphics" then they must have done a piss poor job because they look like 2005 graphics. Have you seen the game? It's hilarious how bad it is.

MrSnuffles · May 2015

Originally posted by Charlie.Cheswick
This game is not as bad as some of the haters will say.

It does need work. And yes, huge potential.

#PFOlivesmatter

Have you seen game-play videos? It's like a parody or a weekend project of a 15 year old. I don't think this has potential or a future. Some games are just really bad and this is one of them especially since they use Unity and will soon discover that the limitations of the engine will not allow for creation of a huge MMORPG unless you completely re-write the core engine and get rid of the java and C# nonsense.

Slapshot1188 · May 2015

Originally posted by MrSnuffles
Originally posted by Charlie.Cheswick
This game is not as bad as some of the haters will say.

It does need work. And yes, huge potential.

#PFOlivesmatter

Have you seen game-play videos? It's like a parody or a weekend project of a 15 year old. I don't think this has potential or a future. Some games are just really bad and this is one of them especially since they use Unity and will soon discover that the limitations of the engine will not allow for creation of a huge MMORPG unless you completely re-write the core engine and get rid of the java and C# nonsense.

People have spent hundreds of dollars.. in some cases thousands.. on this Kickstarter. Those folks have nothing to lose by being the last ones off the ship (or going down to the bitter end with it).

They had almost 10,000 Kickstarter supporters if i recall correctly. All they had to do was keep those folks that already had shown support and interest. Instead, the vast majority of those do not play, the in game population is miniscule, and the CEO has complained that the remaining players are not recruiting enough on places like MMORPG.COM or REDIT. Thus you see threads like this one where the hardcore try to justify supporting the game FOR THE GOOD OF THE MMORPG COMMUNITY!!

Dullahan · May 2015

Originally posted by Bluddwolf
Originally posted by Dullahan
Originally posted by Howbadisbad

Originally posted by wmmarcellino
Sandbox models are currently broken--dumping people into a box with tools to grief/kill each other creates greifing/murder sims.

Care to explain what games you are alluding to? I have played many sandbox MMOs and I never felt that any of them were "greifing/murder simulators".

Of course catering to unfounded shibboleth like sandboxes are murder simulators Is a lot easier than making real points isn't it?

Both Darkfail and Mortal Online.

I'll do you one better and tell you, its not so much creating a murder simulator that is the problem with sandbox games, but an overall lack of a reason to play, which in turn leaves players doing little else than fighting for nothing.

Sandbox games in general are just lack the feel of the virtual world they are trying to create, largely because people think that if you just give the players the tools, they will somehow create some glorious sim world where everyone is having a great time.

I played Darkfall UW, and it did not strike me as a murder sim. Most MMOs that are depicted as being murder sims either aren't or are designed to be that.

Survival Horror sandboxes, ie. Rust, are designed to be that. Albion Online, although I have not play it yet, is designed to be a brutal, PVP experience.

But lets not kid the readers, there is no expectation on the part of a developer to create a game / world where everyone is having a great time. As soon as you add in or remove completely PVP, some people are not going to have a good time.

Sandboxes aren't broken, just player expectations or the ability to make an accurate judgement of "is this game for me?" is broken.

Even with a game like PFO, with very little PVP going on (lets be honest now, that is true), there are those that post threads complaining when they are unexpectantly killed, and especially so when they are looted. Open World PVP does not mean the same thing to them, when it happens to them.

...

So the real problem is not that sandboxes are shallow games with nothing to worth doing or accomplishing, the real problem is that people just don't know "if the game is for them?" I think not. If thats really the problem, apparently none of the modern sandbox games are for anyone, because they've all struggled for the very same reasons. Theres nothing worth doing and theres nothing worth fighting over. Counterstrike with elves, does not an MMORPG make.

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