Let's have a thread about Pathfinder Online: The MMORGP

[fectin]

Rolling thunder wasn't bad in a normal sense, it just didn't make money.

The idea was that you take a normal CCG expansion and break it into five smaller releases. Then you have something new out every two weeks, and keep interest sustained better. It also played to L5R's continuous story-ization.

The problem was that actual retailers hated it, because everyone bought much less of it. Because there were fewer cards in each mini-expansion, players could collect a complete set / get the rares they wanted with fewer boosters overall. On top of that, each mini-expansion focused on one or two clans, do if you played one of the other twelve clans, you were likely to just skip that wave altogether.

Of course, if you were a customer it was pretty cool; you basically bought exactly what you wanted, and skipped the whole randomization thing.

(Scorpion Clan Coup was also kind of a sucky expansion to start with, which didn't help)

[K]

Acutally players figure out most formulas pretty damn fast. You can't keep most formulas hidden from players.

Final Fantasy XI is the king at that. Nobody knows how exactly crafting is calculated

Yeh, FFXI is a brilliant execution in complete obscurity. The game has been out for over a decade and people still have arguments about whether crafting on certain days is better, or on certain moon phases, or even facing certain directions with your character.

The answer is probably "random things are random," but hardcore FFXI players don't accept that.

[Doom]

Weird, I seem to remember the moon phases being the biggest helper, though it wasn't a huge thing.

[Rawbeard]

More DoTs!

[nockermensch]

Acutally players figure out most formulas pretty damn fast. You can't keep most formulas hidden from players.

Final Fantasy XI is the king at that. Nobody knows how exactly crafting is calculated

Yeh, FFXI is a brilliant execution in complete obscurity. The game has been out for over a decade and people still have arguments about whether crafting on certain days is better, or on certain moon phases, or even facing certain directions with your character.

The answer is probably "random things are random," but hardcore FFXI players don't accept that.

Relevant to understand this phenomenon

[Ikeren]

@Lago's original post: Somewhere along the lines they tried to explain combat math in some combination of "We'll be using d100's and d1000's! So you can get +500 and still be hit by a kobold, sometimes and nobody is ever totally off the RNG" mixed with "we have some method of making sure combat isn't crazily swingy."

You are correct, however, that this doesn't resemble d20 in the slightest. I think DDO has the MMORGP rights for that

[hogarth]

Wait... PF Online won't be class based? What? I mean, I'm actually always happy for another point based game, but it's fucking PF/D&D, classes are a rather important thing to have in this case. How can they stumble that badly this early on?

Lisa Stevens said something about that decision, maybe on the Pathfinder Online Blog or somewhere. IIRC, its about the OGL forbidding them to use the d20 framework in a computer game. I didn't look into it, but I suppose it makes sense - why else would they abandon something so recognizeable?

Here's Vic Wertz's comments on the licensing issue:

"No other terms or conditions may be applied to any Open Game Content distributed using this License."

A lot of software (but by no means all of it) involves middleware licenses or other mandated licensing terms that may collide rather badly with this statement.

So it's not quite as simple as "no other licenses may be applied to OGL products"—the exact wording is that "No other terms or conditions may be applied to any Open Game Content distributed using this License." Note, for example, that there have long been OGL-based computer tools, and many of them include end-user licensing agreements; so long as those agreements clearly apply only to things like the executable and clearly don't apply to the OGC, they're presumably ok. (Note that I am not a lawyer and can't speak definitively on this.)

But determining exactly when that OGL restriction applies to a particular middleware or distribution license that a software publisher may wish to use is perhaps not simple. It's a potential minefield, and anybody considering it would do well to seek legal advice on the matter from an intellectual properties attorney. It's a situation that Paizo has generally chosen to avoid.

[Dogbert]

So, they basically promised an alpha barely 1 year after they started working... not even Cryptic Studios works that fast if you ask me (and they have mastered the art of churning MMOs out), which confirms my suspicions that paizo is just re-furbishing one of the many cheap graphic engine knockoffs koreans do in imitation to AAA titles (like Rappelz did with Lineage II or Allods with WoW).

Par for the course with Paizo I guess.

[Juton]

So, they basically promised an alpha barely 1 year after they started working... not even Cryptic Studios works that fast if you ask me (and they have mastered the art of churning MMOs out), which confirms my suspicions that paizo is just re-furbishing one of the many cheap graphic engine knockoffs koreans do in imitation to AAA titles (like Rappelz did with Lineage II or Allods with WoW).

Par for the course with Paizo I guess.

The Pathfinder MMORPG is selling its 'sandbox' gameplay not its graphics so it just makes sense to not reinvent the wheel. It's very common in software development, that's why you see the cryengine licensed so often. What will be damning is when the gameplay consists of the normal assortment of fetch quests and killing rats in the sewer.

As I understand it, there are two ways to do sandbox. One is scripted, which is what the vast majority of CRPGs use. However if characters can affect another character's world state in a significant way than coding this gets really complicated. The other way is procedural, usually this creates narratives that feel like mad-libs. If they are able to create NPCs of sophistication of the Dwarves in Dwarf Fortress it could work. The reason Dwarf Fortress is still text graphics is that the coders are more interested in coding character and world logic than graphics. So for a team to recreate this level of character and world logic on their own in under a year is asking too much.

[Dogbert]

"Sandbox," corporate speak in the MMO sector to say "we're either too stingy to pay writers or too dumb to realize we're no longer in year 2000."

If Lisa Stevens wasn't at the helm, I'd already predict another FASA waiting to happen.

[icyshadowlord]

The game is also inconsistent with the lore itself, to those who care about that.

I'm just going to watch curiously from the sidelines on how bad the resulting trainwreck will be.

[hogarth]

If Lisa Stevens wasn't at the helm, I'd already predict another FASA waiting to happen.

She's not at the helm of Goblin Works, the MMORPG company.

[Slade]

The game is also inconsistent with the lore itself, to those who care about that.

I'm just going to watch curiously from the sidelines on how bad the resulting trainwreck will be.

I'm curious, how is the game going to be inconsistent with the lore? Are Advanced firearms going to be common?

[sabs]

Pathfinder has lore?

[Avoraciopoctules]

Pathfinder has like a bajillion splatbooks focusing on individual states and factions. Cheliax: Empire of Devils is more than just 3-4 pages of cheesy spells and equipment. They spend twice as much wordcount just talking about how the Ministry of Historical Revision are jerks.

[codeGlaze]

From what I've seen/read of Pathfinder's setting/ore, I like it.
My homebrew setting had/has a lot of similarities to both Pathfinder and Eberron. People willing to embrace and/or mix in steamtech, magitech and anti-magic has always been a plus for me.

So if they slaughter the lore that'd be sort of sad. But oh well.

Pathfinder actually inspired my home base for my players so I could run serial adventures.

[hogarth]

The game is also inconsistent with the lore itself, to those who care about that.

Considering Golarion lore isn't particularly consistent in the first place, that's no great loss. James Jacobs is a master of backpedaling when it comes to some of the whacky ideas the splatbook writers come up with (e.g. backpedaling on Dragons Revisited, on paladins of Asmodeus, on what the term "atheist" means in Golarion, etc.).

[Slade]

The game is also inconsistent with the lore itself, to those who care about that.

Considering Golarion lore isn't particularly consistent in the first place, that's no great loss. James Jacobs is a master of backpedaling when it comes to some of the whacky ideas the splatbook writers come up with (e.g. backpedaling on Dragons Revisited, on paladins of Asmodeus, on what the term "atheist" means in Golarion, etc.).

Paladin thing yeah it is very stupid that they allow it.
Worse they gave every Paladin theitr own code (that sometimes contradicts in there Splatbooks about the gods with Code of Conduct).
Torag Paladins can lie to their enemies. You wouldn't know this unless you have the splat.

Wait, what does that mean "Atheist": Atheist doesn't mean the same thing now?

[Juton]

In Pathfinder atheist means you don't believe any of the gods are worth worshiping, or something similar. It makes a certain amount of sense, you can empirically prove the gods of Golarian. I think their iconic wizard is an atheist. There is also an evil nation of atheists who persecute clerics and oracles, the faction would be more interesting if they had some depth.

[tussock]

Atheists in D&D only make sense as anti-science primitivists, like theists are on earth. "Miracles don't prove gods! It says so in the book of Dawkins, which is true, because Dawkins wrote it!" Painting them as hating the gods and wanting to get rid of religion is what the actual cultists here believe, and is actively stupid.

Nothing wrong with a cult who aren't Clerics wanting to destroy all the real Clerics. Makes sense. Calling them atheists is offensive. But hey, they good about most stuff, so whatever.

[hogarth]

Wait, what does that mean "Atheist": Atheist doesn't mean the same thing now?

Atheists in the real world would probably claim that the gods are fictional characters and that there is no such thing as divine magic. Vanishingly few people in Golarion believe that.

In one place in the campaign setting, they explain that atheists in Golarion believe that gods aren't worth worshipping, like Juton said.

However, in another place in the campaign setting, they explain that there's a place in the afterlife called The Boneyard which is for atheists who "deny the afterlife", whatever that means. So there's another definition.

And in the atheist country mentioned by Juton, they explain that they hate ALL divine magic, even druids, rangers, etc. So you have yet another definition of atheist that even excludes the possibility of getting magic from twigs and dirt.

[ishy]

Atheists in D&D only make sense as anti-science primitivists, like theists are on earth. "Miracles don't prove gods! It says so in the book of Dawkins, which is true, because Dawkins wrote it!" Painting them as hating the gods and wanting to get rid of religion is what the actual cultists here believe, and is actively stupid.

Painting atheists as people who believe in gods but hating them is stupid religious propaganda. Atheism is that you don't fucking believe in fucking gods.

And being an atheist in D&D can make sense.
Lets say we have Pelor the sungod, Bob the lvl 17 wizard, and McTree the lvl 9 druid. All have the leadership feat, call themselves gods and have their followers worshipping them.
How am I supposed to figure out if one of them is a god or not, and if there is which one is the actual god? (if we assume there are no PHBs lying around).

Atheists in the real world would probably claim that the gods are fictional characters and that there is no such thing as divine magic. Vanishingly few people in Golarion believe that.

They would probably reject the namer 'divine magic' but will believe they can actually use magic. Just like real life atheist believe wine exists, but just don't believe it is the blood of jesus.

In one place in the campaign setting, they explain that atheists in Golarion believe that gods aren't worth worshipping, like Juton said.

So they explain that atheists aren't actually atheists? That sounds stupid.

However, in another place in the campaign setting, they explain that there's a place in the afterlife called The Boneyard which is for atheists who "deny the afterlife", whatever that means. So there's another definition.

So it is a place where you stay for 5 minutes or something till you realise that you are in an afterlife?

And in the atheist country mentioned by Juton, they explain that they hate ALL divine magic, even druids, rangers, etc. So you have yet another definition of atheist that even excludes the possibility of getting magic from twigs and dirt.

That is just offensive. What do they do with atheist clerics, druids, rangers etc?

[hogarth]

And in the atheist country mentioned by Juton, they explain that they hate ALL divine magic, even druids, rangers, etc. So you have yet another definition of atheist that even excludes the possibility of getting magic from twigs and dirt.

That is just offensive. What do they do with atheist clerics, druids, rangers etc?

There's no such thing as an atheist druid, if you define "atheist" as "someone who's not a cleric, ranger, paladin, druid, oracle, inquisitor, etc.". Circular logic for the win!

[Voss]

Personally I'm more interested in Neverwinter, because it uses so much of 4e nomenclature but obviosly little of the actual game engine, that I want to see how daily powers recharge (yes, they have at-will, encounter and daily powers. In an action RPG. I'm not making that up). And that's all there is to that game. How stupid were they basically.

Answer: in the neverwinter MMO, at wills are spammable, encounters have a cool-down timer (some number of seconds, probably 15-30), and 'dailies' involve a charge mechanic. By attacking with at wills and encounters, you fill a bar, and once you max it, you can use the daily. The developers also mentioned that they plan on renaming 'daily power' to something less stupid.

Most of the powers are right out of the books, and the numbers are inflated for the MMO audience, as you would expect.

The weird thing is they are only doing a handful of classes, and each is split in two.

[OgreBattle]

That sounds like Final Fantasy XIV

some powers recharge in a few seconds
some powers recharge in 30 seconds
some powers require you to build up your meter to unleash