The graphics don't look that hot, but then again few western MMOs launched the last 10 years have. Personally, I'm surprised they got this far.
Pathfinder Online
- Thread starter Treesong
- Start date
Is it really hard to make online tabletop? I mean, I realize there ARE options out there, but why aren't bigger name companies like Wizards working their nards off to get a bona fide version of tabletop in a box for online play?
Fuck MMOs. They make mockery of real gaming.
Fuck MMOs. They make mockery of real gaming.
Tmac
Adventurer
- 9,385
- 15,946
You'd think.
Actually, it'd probably be pretty sweet to play a tabletop game online. It'd sure as hell reduce the barrier to entry.
I had never been in a comic book store in my life, but in 8th grade I saw one of my friends reading a Games Workshop book and it blew my mind. It became my bathroom reading material for the next year. Haha. I never actually got into it, but I would sure as hell play a computer game that emulated tabletop gaming!
Wizards was supposed to, but like everything else relating to D&D they screwed the pooch and everything went to shit. I think a guy even killed himself.
Actually the lead designerkilled his wife and then himself.Terribly sorry for that woman, and I can see why there would be a period of mourning over the whole thing, but come on. It's been YEARS.
Anyway, I truly, truly believe there's a huge hidden market out there for online turn-based game play. If Fantasy Flight Games ever bought a clue and put their best-selling board games in a good-looking online format, they could sell monthly subscriptions by the assload. Imagine for 10 bucks a month you had online access to play anyFantasy FlightBoard game with the online community day or night. Take my money, that shit is FUN. And I have a really hard time believing that with all the shit developers show off these days that hiring a small team of competent devs wouldn't do a job well done on a medium budget with some board games where the mechanics are already all laid out. All that's needed is a translation to a new format with some bells and whistles. Next, market that shit and it's a done deal.
See, if someone like Fantasy Flight picked up the ball and showed that such a thing would be insanely profitable (and I'm goddamned positive it would be), then we might see some truly amazing turn-based games like D&D get done they way they deserve.
There's just no reason beyond laziness and stupidity not to make this genre of online gaming take off like it should. Fuck, it's just way overdue.
The folks over and Cryptozoic would know exactly what I'm talking about. As excited as I am about Hex, I sort of wish they'd have tapered their ambition a little and gone the board game route instead of the TCG route, simply because a bundle of board games would be a surer thing to start with.
uhh wow never heard about that
On a side note, this is still looking to be a huge misuse of the Pathfinder IP. Why they don't license a company to make a Baldur's Gate / Dragon Age clone set in Pathfinder (essentially 3rd edition D&D) completely unfathomable.
Arden
Blackwing Lair Raider
- 2,648
- 1,941
Misuse how?On a side note, this is still looking to be a huge misuse of the Pathfinder IP. Why they don't license a company to make a Baldur's Gate / Dragon Age clone set in Pathfinder (essentially 3rd edition D&D) completely unfathomable.
shabushabu
Molten Core Raider
- 1,408
- 185
If this thing does release the only reason to play it ( which is huge for me ) is the Pathfinder system. IMO its the best one out there along with D&D 3.5 on which it is based. I can't imagine there will be anything "new" other than a kick ass system behind it.
what is so kick ass about the system? 3.5 was good and pathfinder was, in theory, a marginal improvement on that. But, I think the zeal that pathfinder fanboys have for the system is based more on the fact that it was being taken out of the hands of WotC. I was equally thrilled to have an alternative to the abortion that was DnD 4e, but the actual product paizo released turned out to be a total cash grab and absolute garbage. I purchased over $500 dollars worth of rule books, adventure paths, campaign settings, and game aids, and not a single item I got felt like a finished product. The physical quality of the books and the artwork were absolutely top tier, but when you buy a 64 page adventure book with 40 pages of poorly written flavor text you feel cheated. It wasn't even enjoyable to read as flavor text it was just boring. That doesn't include the abysmal editing; missing character abilities, references in the adventures to maps/pages that don't exist, etc. To their credit they have put out a metric fuckton of content, but a lot of it was really mediocre. The supplement bloat for pathfinder is worse than it ever was for DnD. It doesn't surprise me that the mmo has a bit of a cloud over it. Paizo is after a quick buck and they always have been.
Gutterflesh
Parody Account
- 7,677
- 39,458
Friends and I bought just about ever Pathfinder book on a whim one day thinking we would relive our younger years. We attempted to play, but in the end we just got drunk and bullshitted all night. I have a stack of these books sitting in one of my closets that are literally brand new.
Anyways what amazed me is that all the various Pathfinder books are available for download as a PDF for like $5. I remember back when I was 12 we had a single players handbook that was beat to shit. It had been passed around more than a Thai hooker and smelled one like too. Money is no concern for me now, but fucking hell back then I would've slit a kittens throat for a players handbook if it only cost me $5.
I don't know maybe times have changed, but what Paizo is doing doesn't seem like a cash grab to me.
Grim1
Ahn'Qiraj Raider
- 4,865
- 6,822
Well that was an unfortunate statement by you. The first thing I thought was "It took you $500 to figure that out?".
I don't know the games personally so can't comment on their quality or lack thereof. But it wouldn't take a $500 dollar investment to figure it out. I suspect you actually enjoyed the games for quite a while, and then only became disappointed at the end of your investment.
I was a beta tester on Pathfinder P+P and it's more than a "marginal" improvement over 3.5. A lot of what Pathfinder does right is leave shit alone. I know that sounds stupid but they made minor tweaks to a lot of things but left what worked alone. Simply by adding a feat every other level (instead of every three in DnD 3.5) a lot of character "dead levels" were removed. They added a little bit of flair to every class which improves each class in small ways that makes the entire character flow much better. A great example of this is removing the Bardic Knowledge feature (which was redundant anyway since Bards are skill monkeys) and allow Bards to add half their level into all knowledge checks. This small thing becomes a big deal when you utilize feats that require skill checks off of knowledge checks. Small changes that have a big impact.
You're a fucking crack smoker. It isn't even close. DnD 3.5 has 55 rulebooks (not including anything from 3.0 and only including books printed by WoTC for the generic campaign setting). So not counting any adventures, any campaign settings (FR and Eberron mostly) you have 55 fucking books. Want to count the campaign setting materials oh that number is over 100 now. Want to count adventures published for 3.5 specific source books now we are somewhere around 200 I think. Probably more. Back when all the materials were in print you could spend 5k and not have all the books and adventures. We're not including Dungeon magazine or Dragon Magazine in any of this either let alone the DnD minis. Pathfinder has what 20 rule books and all of one campaign setting (as far as I know anyway). Goddamn dude that is seriously the most retarded shit I have read this week (in regards to nerd related discussion).Antagonist_sl said:
Well paizo started off very strong, the adventures they published in Dragon were excellent. I played those with a group and tested the pathfinder alpha and beta as well. I had high hopes for the company and wanted to give them my support. So instead of buying just a core rule book and bestiary I purchased a dm's guide, advanced phb, the second half of the bestiary, a good chunk of the adventure paths, the golarian campaign setting book, and a few of the player aides like item cards etc. 500 was a little heavy I guess but for all of that I think it is reasonable. Is the game brokenly bad? No. Is it full of little headaches that add up way too quickly? Yep. I did get some use out of the products for sure, but I wouldn't recommend them to someone who already has a set of 3.5 books and the time to make their own adventures/campaigns.
I was certainly one of those kids with a beat up PHB and a Monster Manual (which everyone seems to be splitting into multiple volumes these days) but I was under the impression the pdfs were a $5 addon to a book purchase. I could be wrong on that though.
I was certainly one of those kids with a beat up PHB and a Monster Manual (which everyone seems to be splitting into multiple volumes these days) but I was under the impression the pdfs were a $5 addon to a book purchase. I could be wrong on that though.
I am actually Convo/Shabushabu/ArcticSlicer levels of crazy about this game but I refuse to feed myself to the wolves here. So, yeah, graphics sucks, Ryan Dancey sucks, this is gonna fail, wtf PvP and so forth.
Even so: Alpha is planned for April this year, Early Enrollment (if you bought into that, which I did) in Q3 this year. They are still on track with their development schedule. Early Enrollment starts with a MVP (Minimum Viable Product), features will be added during the 1.5 years of Early Enrollment after that, no wipes. Open Enrollment will start in Q1 2016. That is when Settlement Warfare should have been implemented.
A few notes that may safe you the trouble of reading up on this at all(there is a HUGE amount of blogs to work through if you do):
These are 2 things that may perceived as a dealbreaker.
However if these 2 do not put you off, then there is huge amount of more interesting and positive things to read about the game in the GoblinWorks blogs here:Goblinworks
I would also like to add we are not talking 10 jobless game-designers here, drinking the Kool-aid in a garage. This project has continued funding by Paizo, established publisher of the Pathfinder I.P. and is well into development, within offices on the Paizo grounds in Seattle. These two blogs should give you a bit of insight on how the development process is going and where the money goes.
Where are we sofar
About the money
Even so: Alpha is planned for April this year, Early Enrollment (if you bought into that, which I did) in Q3 this year. They are still on track with their development schedule. Early Enrollment starts with a MVP (Minimum Viable Product), features will be added during the 1.5 years of Early Enrollment after that, no wipes. Open Enrollment will start in Q1 2016. That is when Settlement Warfare should have been implemented.
A few notes that may safe you the trouble of reading up on this at all(there is a HUGE amount of blogs to work through if you do):
- Heavy on PvP(Player settlements, Warfare, Feuds, a thriving and localized! player-economy based on scarcity and transportation! of resources are the keywords that I would use) but the goal is to NOT let the game degrade into a murder-simulator. If this statement immediately triggers a huge NOT POSSIBLE in your mind and rustles all your jaded jimmies then do not proceed.
- You do not earn xp to skill your character up, you BUY xp. Each character can have a monthly max of XP applied to it, which equals a 15 dollar sub price. You pay for each separate character, you can have more characters on the same account receiving xp and you can have any amount of characters of the same account online simultaneously. So it is a bit like Eve's subsystem. The xp is not the end of the story, you need to finish achievements in the game to apply the xp for certain skills/roles/feats you want.From the moment Early Enrollment starts, monetization will start!However most of the Kickstarter pledges include free months of xp. Soon the Goblinworks Store will open where you can buy packages to ensure participation in EE and such.
These are 2 things that may perceived as a dealbreaker.
However if these 2 do not put you off, then there is huge amount of more interesting and positive things to read about the game in the GoblinWorks blogs here:Goblinworks
I would also like to add we are not talking 10 jobless game-designers here, drinking the Kool-aid in a garage. This project has continued funding by Paizo, established publisher of the Pathfinder I.P. and is well into development, within offices on the Paizo grounds in Seattle. These two blogs should give you a bit of insight on how the development process is going and where the money goes.
Where are we sofar
About the money
I think we are on the same wavelength... this is the most innovation interesting game coming for me but I am petrified that it's too innovative for them to pull off with such a small team.