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Pathfinder Online's Ryan Dancey on early adopter experience bonuses
On yesterday's Massively Speaking podcast, Justin and I discussed Pathfinder Online's plans for granting its earliest and most loyal players what seems to be the ultimate character bonus: an experience edge over everyone else, forever. I'll let the Pathfinder Online dev post Hard is Fun! explain verbatim: Our game uses a unique real-time based XP system. Characters gain XP through the passage of time, not through being logged in. So the characters that are created in the first month will be the characters with the most XP for all time. A special perk will be in effect that backdates XP to the start of Early Enrollment for the first month so no matter when you purchase an account, if you create a character in Month 1, you'll have that maximum XP. Usually games with offline experience systems also have either a hard cap or a diminishing returns mechanic to avoid the core "sandbox problem" -- that those who get to the sandbox first perpetually have the most power because they claim all the best toys (and so on). But as written, the Pathfinder Online system seems to exacerbate rather than fix that problem by promising "pioneers" more power in the form of permanently more experience. Suspecting there was more to the plan, we asked Goblinworks' Ryan Scott Dancey to explain just how it plans to balance its concessions to early backers with its presumed desire to attract newbie players in the more distant future. He's done so, in detail, for us today.
GoblinWorks: Pathfinder's PvP 'provides meaningful context'
GoblinWorks' latest Pathfinder developer blog went live this week, and in it CEO Ryan Dancey previews alpha version 10.0 which "closes a number of critical game loops" by adding several features. Testers will experience increased character power, increased crafting abilities, and a new company/settlement UI, to name just a few of the improvements. Dancey also says that Pathfinder's PvP will "provide meaningful context" while acknowledging that "many people have serious reservations about PvP." Dancey says that the solution to the problem of bad PvP behavior and "no-fun experiences" is the context. "When people struggle over something meaningful they behave differently than when PvP is just [a] random fight." How exactly will Pathfinder provide this context? You'll have to read the dev blog to find out! [Thanks Chrysillis!]
PAX Prime 2014: Paying a premium for Pathfinder Online
Would you pay to get into an alpha test? Well, would you continue to pay a monthly subscription to keep on playing a title that's not yet launched? If you've answered "yes" to these questions plus the special one that I ask at the end of this article, then you're one of the folks that Pathfinder Online hopes to recruit for early enrollment come September 15th. I sat down with Goblinworks CEO Ryan Dancey and Game Designer Stephen Chaney at PAX Prime yesterday to talk about this next big step for the game. Pathfinder Online is still far from feature complete, but the team considers it done enough that it can monetize the game in the form of a monthly sub. The 20,000 or so folks who will be admitted into early enrollment play (a number that includes the 7,000 Kickstarter backers) are expected to pay $15 a month as the team continues to develop the title. In exchange, characters and progress will not be wiped, and players will get to see the game take shape around them. Goblinworks' philosophy is to have a robust game design first and then wrap the rest of the game around it afterward. Dancy said that the monetization is necessary to keep the lights on and the development rolling. The budget for a finished Pathfinder Online is $5 million (89% of which is salaries), but only $1.4 million has been raised so far. Being only passingly familiar with Pathfinder Online, I asked why the MMO with its territory control seems so different from the small party, adventure-oriented tabletop game. The reason for this is that the pen-and-paper game doesn't completely translate to software boundaries, plus it draws from an adventure pack that Paizo tested a while back that went on to become one of its best-selling products. In both versions of Pathfinder, the long game is to rule the land and establish a legacy, not merely fill up a bag with XP and loot. So is it worth it to you to pay a full subscription price for a half-finished game? That's up to you.
Pathfinder set to begin NDA-free alpha
GoblinWorks released a new Pathfinder dev blog this week. In a nutshell, the team is kicking off the fantasy sandbox's alpha test in very short order. The first week or two "will be an internal test" comprised of employees and family members, writes CEO Ryan Dancey. Dancey also points out that alpha really does mean alpha, but even so, GoblinWorks will not restrict testers with any sort of NDA. Click through the links below for more info! [Thanks Chrysillis!]
Pathfinder Online's Ryan Dancey on crowdforging a 'minimum viable product'
In response to our recent editorial questioning whether we are in fact in the middle of a sandbox renaissance, Goblinworks CEO Ryan Dancey has penned a Massively-exclusive dev blog to explain why his game, Pathfinder Online, is indeed at the center of such a renaissance. Pathfinder was specifically mentioned in our article as a possible example of those pseudo-sandboxes that rely too heavily on creating a space for players to butcher each other without bothering to create the mechanics for anything else. Dancey hopes to clarify his game's outlook today. Read on for his dev blog, in which he discusses what he means by "minimum viable product," distances Pathfinder from the cripplingly expensive graphical arms race plaguing the industry, and elaborates on just how Goblinworks plans to roll out this "crowdforged" MMO.
GoblinWorks releases Pathfinder Q4 backer update video
GoblinWorks has released a new gameplay video for its forthcoming Pathfinder Online fantasy sandbox. Dubbed as the fourth quarter backer update, the clip shows developers adventuring in the game's River Kingdom. Pathfinder's Q4 milestone was met in January, writes CEO Ryan Dancey, and the two major focus areas were the combat system (including the UI, animations, and multiple role features) and "the conversion of the world terrain from the fully manual small scale process to a more large scale terrain development method using the Grome tool pipeline." Dancey also hints at forthcoming UI and combat reveals plus some nifty skeletons and goblin dogs. Further details are available via the GoblinWorks blog links below. Don't forget the video after the cut! [Thanks Chrysillis!]
Some Assembly Required: Is this really the sandbox renaissance?
It's funny, but this whole sandbox renaissance feeling has got me a little worried. I'm of course ecstatic at the number of sandbox MMOs currently in development, and I'm even happier that one triple-A outfit has finally acknowledged that MMOs are supposed to be sandboxes. EverQuest Next and Landmark aren't the only reasons to be amped, either, as games like Star Citizen, Elite: Dangerous, and The Repopulation are all putting their own spin on emergent virtual worlds and standing on the shoulders of genre giants. It's not all roses, though, and amidst the cautious optimism on display from starving sandbox fans, I feel the need to remind myself of the various personal pitfalls that still need to be addressed.
Pathfinder's on track for an April alpha
Heyo, it's time for the latest Pathfinder Online dev blog. GoblinWorks bigwig Ryan Dancey says that last Monday marked the end of the firm's Q4 2013 development period. The milestone was capped by an internal team playtest today, with another scheduled for Paizo luminaries this Friday. Dancey lists each of the team's Q4 goals -- including Wizard, Rogue, Cleric, and Fighter classes, all at fourth level and all with "at least one weapon with a full set of attacks -- before stating that "we met the experience goals we set for ourselves." 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. [Thanks Chrysillis!]
Forbes: ESO's subscription model is just 'a compounding factor' to risk
Forbes is firing back at Pathfinder Online CEO Ryan Dancey, rebutting his faith in the subscription model by observing, "The general, obvious trend is that games are moving to microtransactions or optional subscriptions at best." Forbes contributor Paul Tassi casts doubt on the subscription chart estimates provided by Dancey, saying that they leave out costs and other factors and are mere guesses to boot. The article points out that virtually all newer MMOs have either launched with a hybrid or mictrotransaction model or have moved to free-to-play in recent years. "With rumors of a massive budget, indicators that the game itself isn't anything phenomenal, and the insistence of the subscription model across all platforms, I stand by my assertion that Elder Scrolls Online has the potential to be a huge miss for ZeniMax and Bethesda," the article concludes. "Honestly, even a free-to-play ESO would have seemed incredibly risky by itself, and the subscription fee is just a compounding factor."
Pathfinder Online CEO defends Elder Scrolls Online's subs
The Elder Scrolls Online's subscription-only business model has had an unlikely ally step up to defend it: Goblinworks CEO Ryan Dancey. The Pathfinder Online head chief claimed that subscriptions were still responsible for upward of an estimated $100 million a month in revenues in the Western market with a much smaller amount being gained by cash shops. "It's even harder to estimate how much revenue is being generated from microtransactions but it is extremely difficult to imagine that the revenue even approaches 50% of the amount being paid as subscription fees," he wrote. Dancey also commented that initial box sales will be incredibly important for ZeniMax: "This may be the internal justification ZeniMax is using to benchmark its budget for Elder Scrolls Online. Skyrim, the most recent single-player entry in the Elder Scrolls franchise, is reported to have sold approximately seven million units, which we can impute translates to something like $210 million in revenue. If the MMORPG can carry that kind of weight, its budget becomes suddenly very rational." Incidentally, Dancey said that Pathfinder Online will launch with a subscription-only model as well, although he predicts that will change over time.
Pathfinder's latest dev blog outlines reputation, alignment
If you missed this week's Pathfinder dev blog, well, go read it! It features an update/intro penned by GoblinWorks CEO Ryan Dancey, while the meat and potatoes concerning the fantasy sandbox's alignment and reputation systems are brought to you by designer Lee Hammock. "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." Specific examples and much more detail are available via the links below. [Thanks Chrysillis!]
New Spellcasting Pathfinder dev blog declares game 'half done'
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! These details, provided by Designer Stephen Cheney, focuses on changes to the spellcasting system. After bumping into difficulties with the system as first proposed, devs came up with some solutions to address concerns. The new system includes a new class of weapon that produces expendable effects (called spells for casters and maneuvers for non-casters) and alterations to the Refresh system. The expendables are also dropped as loot and treated like learned feats, which also prompted a few changes in active feats. You can read up on all the details in the blog post. [Thanks to Crysillis for the tip]
Pathfinder's Q3 milestone video now viewable
Remember that Pathfinder update we posted last week that featured snippets of in-game video alongside soundbytes from GoblinWorks CEO Ryan Dancey's GamesBeat 2013 speech? Well, today GoblinWorks has released the full video to the public. No, not the speech video, the in-game video! It's basically an update on the dev team's progress toward its third quarter milestone, and you'll find all three minutes and twenty-six seconds of it after the break.
Pathfinder's Dancey on the 'broken AAA themepark financial model'
GoblinWorks CEO Ryan Dancey gave a presentation earlier today at GamesBeat 2013 focused around Pathfinder Online's approach to solving the "two fundamental problems of MMO development." These problems are the "broken AAA themepark financial model" and the customer desire for a game that "persistently reflects the cumulative effects of their actions." The sandbox paradigm is the solution to both problems, Dancey explained, as is a community-driven initiative that GoblinWorks calls crowdforging. Crowdforging revolves around feature implementation that is heavily influenced by the game's community. Pathfinder "maximizes meaningful human interaction, and a minimum viable product allows us to build our game with a small, agile team," he explains, before citing a few of the project's Kickstarter numbers. Dancey also shows off in-game footage from the game's most recent milestone. Finally, Dancey says that Pathfinder monetization will begin following an alpha in early 2014. The monetization will take the form of an early enrollment system akin to Gmail's beta. "We're on schedule, on budget, and ready to change forever how MMOs are made," Dancey concludes. We've embedded a lengthy GamesBeat video stream after the break. The Pathfinder presentation starts around the 03:23:00 mark. [Thanks Chris!]
New Pathfinder dev blog details salvaging, harvesting, and more
So what about Pathfinder's non-combat gameplay? I'm thinking specifically here about salvaging, harvesting, and gathering. What's that, you say? GoblinWorks has just posted a dev blog on these very topics? Well, I'll be! It seems as if salvaging has been simplified a bit since the last the time the devs talked it up. 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. Hit the links below to learn more.
GoblinWorks 'solidly on track' to hit Pathfinder's early enrollment goal
GoblinWorks is breaking up Pathfinder Online's development process into quarterly chunks. These chunks are known as milestones, and the latest dev blog for the fantasy sandbox title says milestone one was completed on April 15th while milestone two wrapped on July 15th. 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. So what about milestone three? That's covered in the lengthy dev blog as well, and GoblinWorks' Ryan Dancey says that it boils down to "polish polish polish." He also mentions that the team is "solidly on track to hit our early enrollment goal." You can read the full entry at the GoblinWorks website. [Thanks Chrysillis!]
Player-driven economy 'at the very heart' of Pathfinder's design
Need some light reading material? Skip the latest Pathfinder Online dev blog, then! The update is typically verbose, but that's to be expected when discussing a sandbox title with a mile-long feature list. 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. There's a fair number of moving parts in GoblinWorks' design, and that fact isn't lost on Dancey. "We are concerned about the complexity implied by this system when it's reduced to inventory lists and markets," he explains. "Obviously the potential exists to shock players with huge lists of similar goods with very minor variations, making buying and selling decisions difficult. Our plan currently is to tackle this problem with UI design so you can filter and sort these lists quickly and understandably."
Pathfinder Online early access begins in 2014
Last January, Pathfinder Online sneaked past its Kickstarter funding goal of a million real-life dollars at what was effectively the last minute. And now, five months after that success, Goblinworks is ready to outline what it is that early backers actually purchased. In a lengthy and detailed blog post, Goblinworks' Ryan Dancey explained what the GW team considers to be Pathfinder Online's "minimum viable product." He also explained that early enrollment users will first gain access to what is effectively a barebones version of the game, with the focus from the team being on building a strong foundation for the content to come. Development will continue in phases from there. Most important for backers is the announcement of a timeline; early enrollment for Pathfinder Online is currently set for the third quarter of 2014 and is expected to run for around 18 months. With that schedule, unrestricted territorial warfare would launch in the first quarter of 2016. Goblinworks is billing the long development pipeline as an opportunity for players to get in on the ground floor and witness MMO development from the inside out. [Thanks to Chrysillis for the tip!]
Pathfinder producer talks player-generated content, archetypes, and more
Goblinworks' CEO Ryan Dancy recently guested on the DM Fiat podcast. The Pathfinder Online producer had plenty to say about the tabletop RPG that's invading the MMO space, including nuggets about Pathfinder's extensive guild/settlement system, the River Kingdoms and expanding beyond them, and player-generated content. 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. Head to DM Fiat to listen to the podcast. [Thanks Mark!]
Pathfinder dev blog details the building of Fort Inevitable
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." The blog post is pretty long, so bring your own caffeinated beverage. It's an interesting peek behind the development curtain, though, and you can find it at the Goblinworks website. [Thanks Matixzun!]
