Pathfinder Online

[Morreion]

About Pathfinder Online (Pathfinder official site)

About Pathfinder Online

An exciting new era in gaming begins with Pathfinder Online, a next-generation Massively Multiplayer Online fantasy roleplaying game currently in development from Goblinworks in partnership with Paizo Publishing!

Pathfinder Online is a hybrid sandbox/theme park-style MMO where characters explore, develop, find adventure and dominate a wilderness frontier in a land of sword and sorcery. The Pathfinder world is high fantasy in the tradition of epics like The Lord of the Rings, Conan, the Wheel of Time and Game of Thrones.

The Pathfinder setting includes many different classic and modern fantasy elements, from lost cities shrouded in misty jungles to decaying pyramids amidst deserts of burning sands to a fantastic island metropolis where folk from across the world live side by side with all manner of fantastic creatures. The Pathfinder world has a place for any story a player wants to tell. (For more information on the world of Pathfinder and the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game, please visit paizo.com/pathfinder.)

Pathfinder Online's robust trading system puts players in control of the world's economy with player-created items, consumables, fortifications, and settlements. Character-controlled settlements can grow into full-fledged kingdoms that compete for resources as they seek to become the dominant force in the land, raising vast armies to hold their territory against the depredations of monstrous creatures, NPC factions, and other player characters.

Social organizations scale from small parties of a few adventurers to player nations inhabited by thousands. As settlements develop, the surrounding wilderness develops more complex and challenging features, including randomly generated encounters and resources as well as exciting scripted adventures.

The design process for Pathfinder Online has only just begun, and there is plenty of opportunity for gamers to get in on the ground floor of this exciting new project. Paizo and Goblinworks are committed to soliciting player feedback, and you'll be able to track the game's development here at goblinworks.com.

Pathfinder Online, Sandbox MMORPG Announced (Gaming Blend)

While grinding and getting strong plays a big part in the game, resource management and gathering is even more important if you plan to become more than just a player who griefs low levels. You can use trading and crafting to build up homes, settlements and eventually castle settlements. They aren’t just there for looking pretty either, players will be able to utilize settlements for villagers and making money, as well as eventually raising an army and recruiting other players to help control the continent. Is that not badass or what?

Former CCP Staffers Found Pathfinder Online Studio (Gamasutra)

Ryan Dancey, formerly CMO at Eve Online developer CCP Games, has launched a new development studio that is currently developing an MMO based on the Pathfinder tabletop roleplaying game.

Goblinworks currently consists of Dancey, Paizo Publishing CEO Lisa Stevens, and Mark Kalmes, previously a programmer for Microsoft, Cryptic Studios and CCP.

Goblinworks CEO: 'There's a whole new way to make MMOs affordably' (Massively)

Goblinworks CEO Ryan Dancey introduces key members of the Pathfinder team (including industry veterans who have worked on titles including City of Heroes and World of Darkness) before moving on to a high-level view of Pathfinder's business plan. Three main strategies emerge from the wall o' text, and Dancey cites the use of field-tested middleware, sandbox design elements, and most interestingly, a hard cap on the number of new players allowed into the game each month as the factors that will make Pathfinder stand apart from the gaggle of themepark clones currently blotting out the sun.

A Journey of a Thousand Miles Begins with a Single Step (Pathfinder official blog)

In most MMO development plans, that theme park content is where the budget is spent. Creating the assets for the graphics and sounds—and whatever custom programming is needed to make those assets do what the designers want—and then designing the levels to present the challenges that the designers have imagined soaks up lots of time. And that theme park content has to be extensively tested to ensure that it works as designed, adding further development time. And time, in the MMO business, is money, in the form of salaries and overhead. (The ultimate expression of the theme park process is coming very soon in the form of Star Wars: The Old Republic, from EA/Bioware. I have been told by people I trust within the industry that this project's budget has exceeded $300 million. It is the Avatar of this generation of MMOs.)

The result of this time/cost function is that theme park MMOs must attract a huge number of players on release so that they can recoup those huge overhead costs as fast as possible. This creates a feedback loop that dooms many MMO developers: they need a big launch so that they can start covering their costs, so they have to create enough content to satisfy a huge initial spike of players, but making that content costs even more money. It's very easy to get into a trap where the cost to make the content you need to pay for your design is more than you can generate in revenue from that design. This is why many MMOs never see the light of day...

The second critical issue with theme park MMOs is that it's very difficult to entertain a crowd of theme park enthusiasts who have completed all the theme park content... and theme park enthusiasts can blast through content in no time. If new content isn't ready when players have finished the old content, they'll flee to another MMO (many will go back to World of Warcraft). The result is the "spike & crash" pattern we've seen with every major fantasy theme park MMO released in the past five years. Companies are then in the position where they no longer have enough customers to cover the cost of the enormous infrastructure they've built up for the launch. This is why many MMOs don't have long-term success.

Lisa's challenge to figure out how to make the game on a lean budget led me to the realization that the last thing we want is a huge spike of players followed by a rapid decline. What we want instead is a slow, steady growth of players—the same kind of growth that EVE Online has experienced almost every year since its launch. Since Goblinworks won't have to pay off a huge theme park mortgage, our focus will instead be on making our virtual world as engaging as possible and sustaining that virtual world as the population grows over years of time.


*sandbox fan drools* Read the whole post!

[sinaedh]

It sounds very cool!

[Morreion]

I agree, Sinaedh! This is on my list of sandbox-y games to keep an eye on!

[Loendal]

A friend of mine on Facebook posted this up. Apparently they are trying to use Kickstarter to get the money for the project. They seem to have pretty high ambitions; and I worry about the insistence that the players are going to fund and design the game. As anyone in here knows, styles of roleplay, what is considered grindy and what is considered fun and engaging is hugely varied person to person. I like the idea; just don't know how well it will work inside an MMO framework.

[Morreion]

I saw that they were doing the Kickstarter thing and my enthusiasm for the project has diminished- I thought that they had a token amount of funding at least

[Morreion]

Pathfinder Online looks to Crusader Road (Massively)

According to the post, the entirety of Pathfinder Online at launch will take place in a 133-square-mile region known as the Crusader Road area. To get an idea of how absurd this is, look at this post's header image. See that little red box? That's the Crusader Road area. And the remainder of the map that it's shown on is only a small fraction of the entire Pathfinder world (as an image on the blog post shows), so players should likely expect a lot of exploration in a massive-scale world. For the full details on Crusader Road, head on over to the Goblinworks official site and take a look.

Pathfinder Online takes a look at death (Massively)

The blog entry also covers the issue of bounties, player-killing, and attempting to dissuade others from killing players in lawful regions. Players can set bounties on their killers, potentially refreshing the bounty each time said killer is successfully killed in retaliation, making a bounty hunter or group of same very rich indeed.

Pathfinder Online (Keen & Graev)

Pathfinder Online is a sandbox game with theme park elements. You’ll be able to create your own place in the world of Golarion, complete with complex social and economic systems. You’ll form ad-hoc or permanent groups ranging in size from small parties to large settlements and even huge nations, and interact with others in your world in a realistic, unscripted fashion. You’ll also be able to participate in scripted adventures, though, with the outcome of those adventures helping to determine the shape of your world. [Source: Official FAQ]

Pathfinder Online will let players run the kingdom (Massively)

Solo play is meant to be somewhat discouraged, as the blog notes it will be a much more difficult road for a dedicated lone wolf. Parties will be the next step up, holding an undetermined number of players (the working target has about 24 players at the high end). Above those are chartered companies, settlements, and as mentioned, entire new player-run kingdoms. It's going to produce some interesting dynamics to have player organizations in such abundance, but the developers seem to have some confidence in their initial designs.

Pathfinder Online measures up player housing (Massively)

While there will be three NPC settlements, player structures will be a significant presence in Pathfinder Online, Dancey says. Not only will a player be given the ability to create a persistent structure, but that structure will be vulnerable to destruction as well if not protected. Dancey says that the idea right now is for the world to have special spots that signify a suitable building location; this is to keep the density from growing out of control and also to put buildings near desirable sites or resources. Once a structure is built by a group of players, it can be transferred to new ownership, built up, or attacked.

Some of the structures that the team is kicking around include hideouts, inns, watchtowers, forts, and settlements. Dancey also mentioned that players may be able to improve roads and docks in order to facilitate faster travel.

Pathfinder Online goes time-traveling in latest dev blog (Massively)

In light of this, Goblinworks has decided on a 4:1 game-to-earth-time ratio. This means that four in-game minutes will pass in the span of one real-world minute, one in-game day will pass in the span of six real-world hours, and so forth. This will also influence the rate of travel within the game. The team is operating under the assumption that the average human moves at three miles per hour. In-game hexes are about three-quarters of a mile from edge-to-edge, which means that it would take a real person about 15 minutes to traverse one hex. When you take into account the game's chronological dilation, though, the same journey will take an in-game character less than four minutes (assuming he can travel in a straight line), which the team says passes a basic "sanity test when considering the travel times required to cross the zones in other MMOs."

Pathfinder Online developer blog outlines the path of production (Massively)

The game has a basic three-tiered structure to its non-combat operation, starting with harvesting the resource, moving on to processing and refining the items in question, and finishing with crafting a usable item. And as an outgrowth of the game's open systems, these elements work in multiple directions. Starting a camp to harvest resources, for example, can generate a lot of commotion and attract hostile monsters, necessitating that players deal with the fallout or find someone else willing to do so. No one can accuse the designers of making crafting activities a secondary goal with this degree of detail involved.

Pathfinder Online goes diving into dungeons (Massively)

In short, while dungeons themselves won't be instanced, the entrances will be hidden in various locations. When a dungeon is generated, a player who finds the entrance will have that dungeon locked to him or her until the dungeon is cleared, at which point it will despawn and be replaced by another dungeon.

Pathfinder Online's technology demo gets soundly kickstarted (Massively)

Two days ago, we announced that Pathfinder Online was starting a Kickstarter project to fund a technology demo for the game. Yesterday, the project went live. Today, the project has already hit its $50,000 goal and exceeded it, meaning that the game's demo will most definitely be funded when June 8th rolls around. There are still another 29 days left in the project, so if you're interested in the game, there's still more time for you to throw in your support.

Designing Thornkeep (Pathfinder Online)

With an idea of the power structure and potential faction spread in mind, I started to actually build the town. I kicked off this phase by listing out all the goods and services you'd expect to see in a town: an inn, a tavern, a weaponsmith, an armorer, a stable, a purveyor of spell components, and so on. (The Greenforest Inn is the place that will welcome most newcomers to Thornkeep, and will likely serve as the centerpoint of the game down the road, but any adventurer with hair on his chest will of course do his drinking at the Thirsty Ogre.)

You're in the Army Now! (Pathfinder Online)

The first thing we knew we wanted to address in our design was the lack of any sense of being a part of a larger force. We wanted to give players a reason to form into units and to maintain unit cohesion.

The difference between an army and a mob is that the army knows how to provide mutual reinforcement to each member whereas the mob is mostly concerned with individual acts. A small army can overcome a large mob.

[Regolyth]

Persistent housing in the world, randomly spawning dungeons, bounties... where do I sign up? The only thing I think they're missing is stealing. This seems like it could be a rather good game. I'm going to keep an eye on this one.

[Morreion]

The conception stage of this game does sound interesting, Rego!

A Second Pathfinder Kickstarter?? (The Noisy Rogue)

If investors wouldn’t get your vision, why the hell would you start up the first kickstarter in order to secure funding from investors? This makes exactly zero sense, and already on the forums a very healthy dose of posters are questioning what the hell is going on, while the fanboiys ridicule anyone for daring to question the great creative vision at work here. Not only that, but what made Pathfinder intriguing was the fact that they are going to restrict early access to the game to 4500 players. Obviously everyone funded the first kickstarter with the hope that being an early backer would secure them that early access. Not a chance. Early access can only be guaranteed through the second kickstarter. It’s a massive kick in the guts for what was a devoted fan base.

The Rise of the Fantasy Sandbox MMO - An Exclusive Pathfinder Online Q&A (Ten Ton Hammer)

The problem with Theme Park MMOs is that they cost too much to make, take too long to develop, and don't sustain large communities over the long term. Everyone looked at the exception - World of Warcraft - and assumed it was the average. But we look at the history of the MMO market since Warcraft released and we see the same pattern repeat itself over and over: A big spike of interest on release, followed in six to nine months by a collapse of player interest, followed by server consolidations and staff downsizing, followed by a game that loses development momentum and stagnates. Every major MMO release since Warcraft has followed this pattern.

Along the way budgets have gone crazy. I would guess the baseline budget for the games you've seen released in the past 2-3 years is $100 million....

...But MMOs as a business are doing really well.

The answer seems to be Sandbox. Theme Parks require that the game be nearly feature complete before the first dollar of revenue can be earned. Sandbox games can ship with limited features and add more through iteration while still maintaining a high level of customer satisfaction. Theme Parks require that development teams keep churning out more content to keep players engaged. Sandbox games can be built around the idea that the players ARE the content; give them tools to interact with one another and they will happily do so. Theme Parks have a business model that rewards short-term thinking, boom & bust cycles, hiring binges and deep layoffs. Sandbox games have a business model that rewards long-term thinking. You need to scale a Sandbox carefully so that the population doesn't overwhelm the game, and the staff needs to have a good coherence and continuity so that the game can leverage its institutional knowledge.

To me the core defining virtue is persistence.

Pathfinder Online unveils 'Environment Experience' (Massively)

Pathfinder Online's Kickstarter campaign continues ever onward, but it will soon be drawing to a close. The Goblinworks title has received pledges totaling $671,765 of its whopping $1,000,000 goal...

Fans can now access a nifty tool that will allow them to traipse about the environment from the game's tech demo. It runs right in your browser courtesy of Unity, so it's definitely worth at least a quick look. There is, as you may have guessed, no actual gameplay in this little demo-land; it's just you, the movement keys, and a small chunk of the Pathfinder Online world.

Pathfinder Online Kickstarter now successfully funded [Updated] (Massively)

...As this is being written, the campaign has amassed $972,177, meaning that the campaign needs to pick up an additional 30 grand or so within the next six hours.

The Theme Park MMO Is Dead, Enter the Sandbox (The Escapist)

"One of the things I took away from my time with EVE that was really surprising for me is that there actually are a lot of people who are interested in that non-adventuring lifestyle," Dancey said. "They really do enjoy all that other stuff that goes on in an MMO. And I think that before [working with] EVE, I was pretty skeptical about the size of that population. After EVE, having seen it, I'm not skeptical anymore; I know they're out there. There's just not as much opportunity to participate in the gaming world because no one makes games for them anymore."

While Pathfinder Online will certainly cater to those players more than other fantasy MMOs out there, Dancey realizes there will have to be some dungeons, too. He admits EVE concentrated a bit too much on the corporate game, and he plans for Pathfinder Online to have more adventure in contrast. "EVE has a very big emphasis on economic and political structures and not much emphasis at all on adventuring or going up against challenges that are driven by the environment," he said. Dancey wants a game a "little heavier-weighted towards having fun and a little less towards running a spreadsheet."

Pathfinder's Hammock talks PvP behavioral incentives (Massively)

...Hammock lists large PvP wars, attacker flags, and discouraging mechanics like bounties, death curses, and reputation loss as desirable behaviors.

Pathfinder dev blog rolls up its sleeves and digs into crafting (Massively)

In a nutshell, gear (the majority of which will be player-crafted) will be the final result of many steps involving different skill sets, with the creator's skill rating at each step contributing to the final quality rating. Each step -- harvesting or salvaging, refining, crafting, and enchanting -- can only achieve a quality rating equal to the level of either the starting materials or the creator's skill, whichever is lower.

Murder by Numbers (GoblinWorks dev blog)

Attack and defense are on the same scale, and it's one that keeps even small numbers meaningful throughout your career. An attacker with a +10 bonus and Tier 1 weapon against a target with a +20 save and Tier 1 armor has very similar hit statistics to an attacker with a +80 bonus and a Tier 2 weapon against a target with a +90 save and Tier 2 armor. Being able to give players even a small bonus to attack or defense is going to be useful, particularly when they're fighting evenly matched opponents.

Pathfinder Online shows off early development art (Massively)

Hines discusses the fact that the game has the advantage of drawing upon a great deal of established artwork for the Pathfinder tabletop game, but it also has the challenge of adapting those visuals to the online space. He also shows off several early concept renders and sketches, stressing with each that these are still works in progress that might change before the final release.

[Morreion]

Pathfinder dev blog details the building of Fort Inevitable (Massively)

If you're looking for a little insight into the creative process behind Goblinworks' crowdfunded Pathfinder MMO, look no further than the latest dev blog by designer Rich Baker. After a brief intro by producer Ryan Dancey, Baker delves into the nuts and bolts of building Fort Inevitable, which will likely be "one of the major NPC towns and a potential starting area for new characters in the Pathfinder Online game."

Pathfinder Online dev blog explains territory and the hex map (Massively)

First off, the type of hex matters. Whether it's a settlement hex, a wilderness hex, a monster hex, or an NPC hex, each version determines control capabilities, building laws, resources, and so on. This basically means that no two settlements will be alike.

Goblinworks illuminates Pathfinder's spellcasting system (Massively)

In a new dev blog, Designer Stephen Cheney spells out (har) the approach the team is currently taking with arcane casters (i.e., Wizards and Sorcerers). While these classes will get a huge reservoir of basic cantrips to fling out during normal combat, their actual spells will be difficult to acquire, powerful to perform, and limited in number of uses.

Cheney talks about how wizards will put together spellbooks, why it's important to have a pouch full of spell components, and what keywords you're going to want to collect in order to build the type of caster you envision.

Pathfinder Online discusses the creed of assassination (Massively)

Assassination is a system allowing players to put out contracts on other players, whether for long-term gain or just spite. Successful assassins will slowly become better and better at stealth and can prevent targets from resurrecting nearby. They also get access to Disguises, special outfits that change your display name and hide your actual abilities from other players.

Pathfinder producer talks player-generated content, archetypes, and more (Massively)

Dancey says that Goblinworks would like for players to create their own PvE content modules and sell them to others, likely via some sort of app store format. He also mentions Pathfinder's archetype system and its numerous advantages over traditional class mechanics.

Pathfinder Online never closes a door without opening a PvP window (Massively)

Having a settlement you worked hard to build be under constant attack just isn't fun. Pathfinder Online realizes this, which is why settlements are normally defended by large numbers of respawning NPC guards. Not too many to prevent players from scouting a town or stealing a few things, but enough to make a frontal assault fruitless unless you want your corpses to litter the outskirts of town.

If that were always the case, though, attacking a settlement would be pointless. So during a brief window every day, the guard respawn rate decreases, numbers thin, and suddenly the town looks much more vulnerable to attack. A well-developed settlement will still have guards, but a coordinated force will be able to eliminate them... unless players step in to defend the settlement. This also solves the problem of having massive attacks come when no one is awake to know what's happening.

Pathfinder to feature hands-on construction, building, planning (Massively)

"While it may be easier to wave your hand and decree that your minions build whatever you want, we think it's a little more interesting if players have to think hard, plan ahead, and cooperate to get the most out of their settlements," writes developer Rich Baker.

Player-driven economy 'at the very heart' of Pathfinder's design (Massively)

GoblinWorks' Ryan Dancey writes about the player-driven economy which is "at the very heart of the game design for Pathfinder Online." Key talking points include harvesting, processing, and of course crafting, as well as the developers' role as the "central bankers" with the power to control everything from money sinks and faucets to resource injections.

GoblinWorks 'solidly on track' to hit Pathfinder's early enrollment goal (Massively)

The first quarter goal involved getting the game's tools and pipeline firmly in place, as well as "switching to the Unity middleware engine." The second milestone involved core game systems as well as the integration of a procedural terrain sculpting tool called Grome, the escalation system for PvE content, and plenty of art and programming work.

Pathfinder Online asks what's in your backpack (Massively)

The latest development blog on the official site explains the Encumbrance system, another limit on how many items you can carry due to a combination of size and weight. Hauling around a lot of large and awkward items is going to mean less ability to carry everything else, while lots of little things like herbs will be more easily carried up to the inventory limit.

[Morreion]

Pathfinder dev blog discusses guild design, functionality (Massively)

Pathfinder's companies work best with 50 or fewer members as opposed to giant, hundred-member zergs. Companies can be sponsored by certain in-game settlements, which affords them bonuses, protection, and perhaps danger if said settlements are engaged in hostilities with other in-game groups. Companies advance via an influence mechanic that stems from the deeds of their members.

Latest dev blog highlights PvP aspects of Pathfinder Online (Massively)

In its latest dev blog, PvP is heralded as the core of Pathfinder Online. And designer Tork Shaw offers a broad overview of the different levels of PvP combat that players have to look forward to in the upcoming sandbox. One level is settlement conflict, or territory control, where hundreds of members can fight for and defend their player-run settlement when it's at war with others. On the other hand, since companies have between eight and 50 members, these conflicts are on a smaller scale. Companies can declare feuds with one another and participate in shorter bursts of warfare. An additional level of PVP in Pathfinder will be found in factional conflicts.

New Pathfinder dev blog details salvaging, harvesting, and more (Massively)

Oh, and harvesting spots are generated procedurally, so you won't necessarily be able to map out iron and tree nodes like you can in more typical MMOs. Gathering nodes have also been tweaked. More specifically they're now tied to the supply of harvestable resources in a particular hex, and GoblinWorks is currently going with a system of exclusive discovery rights to prevent claim-jumping. Finally, today's dev blog touches on the game's outposts, which are semi-permanent structures in wilderness areas that produce a steady supply of bulk goods by the hour.

Pathfinder Online dev blog explores outpost raiding (Massively)

Raids are short, small skirmishes initiated against player outposts. Since every outpost produces goods, there is always something worth stealing at any given outpost. To challenge an outpost, raiders must kill NPC guards in addition to any defending players. Raiders can stock up on an outpost's goods after its defenders have been bested. According to Goblinworks, NPC guards for outposts are "few and far between." Stealing items from outposts disrupts supply chains to local settlements.

Pathfinder Online explains role features (Massively)

Of special note is the introduction of the "role feature" that allows characters to take on specific class roles. The role features are set active outside of combat, but can be switched around as you would with traditional alt characters. So, for instance, a Fighter role feature is a weapon specialization role that allows you to play as a fighter with a variety of melee weapons. A Rogue role feature focuses on stealth, evades, and sneak attacks, as you might expect.

New Spellcasting Pathfinder dev blog declares game 'half done' (Massively)

In the most recent dev blog for Pathfinder Online, CEO Ryan Dancey announced that the game is half done, stating,"We're a little bit past the halfway point of development before Early Enrollment." Luckily for those eager to hear specifics about said progress, the blog goes into more detail -- a lot of details!

Pathfinder's latest dev blog outlines reputation, alignment (Massively)

"Reputation is our system for measuring how a player behaves in game," Hammock writes. "We want to provide a means by which a player can judge the aggressiveness of other players at a glance." Pathfinder's rep "has no bearing on your interactions with NPCs, quests, escalation cycles, or other PvE content."

Alignment features two components. One, the player's core alignment, is chosen at creation and "is the intended alignment of the character." Active alignment, on the other hand, "begins at core alignment values but changes based on player action.

One of Pathfinder's 'core philosophies' is socialization (Massively)

That objective is socialization. Or, as GoblinWorks says, "one of our core philosophies is to maximize meaningful human interaction." A major example of said philosophy is the firm's plan to create "a hierarchy of social structures so that many people have a chance to try their hand at leadership and management." This hierarchy starts with outposts, which are the "heart of the in-game economy" and connected to the aforemention POIs.

Pathfinder's on track for an April alpha (Massively)

There are some qualifying statements in terms of "moving pieces [that] still have to fit together," but Dancey concludes with optimism and mentions that alpha testing will likely start in April. "It is increasingly likely that this crazy plan to make an MMO on a fraction of the budget and a sliver of the timeline that has become the norm is going to work," he says.

Dev blog offers snapshot of Pathfinder's finances, new screenshots (Massively)

And for those who backed the project on Kickstarter, the proffered pie chart gives a clear view of where their money went in 2013. The majority of funds, $1.3 million, went to employee overhead, and office overhead ate up the next largest chunk. In all, the company feels it came close to its overall budget plan for the year, with the biggest variance due to hiring more staff.

The blog continues by introducing new devs working on Pathfinder, announcing a new funding feature for those who still want to back but missed the Kickstarters, and offering new screenshots.