Catching Up With PATHFINDER ONLINE

Pathfinder Online has a new release designed for new players - the 9th release since January. It includes a 15-day free trial period (after which it will cost you $15 per month). At Paizocon this year, a new trailer was released - it features Nhur Athemon, from the Emerald Spire Superdungeon. Add to this new creatures such as Duergar and Elementals, Pathfinder Online seems to be picking up steam!

Paizo CEO Lis Stevens posted a blog about the game here, and will apparently be doing so each week from now on.

[video=youtube;ZvEcquJFYkc]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZvEcquJFYkc&feature=youtu.be[/video]
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[uriel222]

Has anyone tried it, yet? Is there the promised PvP element (ala Eve Online)? Or is it just another WoW clone?

 

[Koloth]

Did the KS. Tried it for a while. Was not impressed. The graphics reminded me of games from the 90s. The old Bioware NWN graphics were better. And the game mechanics have little to do with the Pathfinder RPG. The NWN game had a more faithful implementation of D&D V3 then Pathfinder Online does of Pathfinder RPG.

But remember, this game is still in Beta. You will be paying to help them make the final game. This wasn't made fully clear during the KS campaign. Live and learn. It is also likely that both the graphics and play mechanics have improved since I gave up on it.

They are giving you a 15 day free trial. Give it a try. Just because I didn't like it doesn't mean you won't.

 

[lyle.spade]

I backed the KS, as well, primarily because at that point I was very much a PF player and I wanted the paper copy of the book - thought that was pretty neat. I still think the idea of putting their expansive and detailed world online is a good one.

That said, I puttered with the system, having early access because of the KS and I was not impressed, either. Full disclosure: I am not a video gamer, and I think it'd take one heckuva an online RPG to draw me in. Thus, there was already a slope for PFOnline to climb for me.

And that said, it didn't even get a few steps up that slope - it felt to me like Star Wars Galaxies, the free version, 10 years ago. I'll not go back and I already deleted the email I got a few days ago warning me that my account was about to be closed because I'd not signed up to pay.

 

[Evenglare]

Im sorry but this is doomed to fail. The game looks awful especially compared with games today. The animations are awful, and the biggest draw to the game being pathfinder and the tabletop rules... this game doesn't even have that. Compared with juggernauts of Final Fantasy XIV and WOW there is no chance. Even against lesser knowns like FFXI, Everquest 1&2, Wild Star, Star Wars TOR, ESO... there's just no way this is going to even survive. I want the game to be amazing, but these guys look new to the scene and it being as crowded as it is currently? It's just never going to happen. I'd MUCH rather have had a single player game or even a small multiplayer open world game.

 

[Grimstaff]

Charmingly amateurish preview there. It takes some chutzpah to put the same monthly price tag on this as WoW, I'll give them that much.

 

[Jester David]

The OGL doesn't let them use the d20 ruleset. Only WotC and licensed partners can use the d20 rules. Any video game Pathfinder does will HAVE to make-up its own rule system.

They've managed to make a complete video game in a year and a half. Impressive in and of itself, let alone an MMO style game. While it's still beta, there will be no wipes to the server. You keep your characters.

The graphics are terrible but I could care less about that. I like shiny graphics in new games but I also play a lot of retro and indie games with simple graphics. Great graphics are just a crutch to help you ignore a crappy game.
And as it's an online game, they can easily add better sprites and textures over time.

 

[Doctor Futurity]

A couple comments:

Pathfinder Online doesn't look as bad as Neverwinter Nights (the original 3E, not NWN II). Go load up the original NWN Diamond edition (available on GOG.com) and you'll notice that PO does look better. Now....I think it may be up for debate on whether it looks better than NWN II, however.

Now, the problem with Pathfinder Online is that it is (unfortunately) using the Unity Engine. This may not matter to some....it's not really a bad engine, actually....but it's a low-end serviceable engine (originally aimed at tablet game design) that anyone interested in becoming a game developer can purchase for cheap and then utilize the huge number of art packages available for Unity to create game worlds. This has had a terrible side effect in the computer gaming industry of flooding the market with cheap, poorly-designed and poorly conceived games that are relying entirely on pre-packaged assets; it's so bad that Steam, the top dog in distribution for such games, recently implemented a no-questions-asked refund policy to help alleviate customer concerns about how risky it is to buy a game these days.

Pathfinder Online could (and should) try to go Greenlight on Steam and get on the platform. If they manage that, then it means they can be taken as seriously as some of the really horrible stuff currently available over there right now.* If PO is going to have a hope of surviving they need to see if the general PC crowd will engage with their product, because I think what they currently have isn't going to appeal to tabletop gamers as they might have intended.

(Disclosure: I haven't actually played PO, just basing my evaluation off of reading their news bits and forum posts, which are generally full of unhappy early adopters).



*What I mean here is that they get visibility and can be compared to other products that may not be as good, which can only help if they are, in fact, better than many other offerings out there in the same game space. Steam has a lot of "open world sandbox multiplayer" titles on offer right now...too many, one might argue...but the good ones stick out nicely and if PO wants to compete it needs to show up, basically. (EDIT: but I think they still have a problem with a monthly fee system. They won't be able to compete on price, as many of the same offerings on Steam are one-price buy in or maybe offer cash item shops for revenue)

(FINAL EDIT: since they have a 15 day trial I guess I'll go check it out)

 

[DaveMage]

Wish I was more excited about PFO, but I haven't seen anything that makes me want to play it.

 

[pming]

*facepalm*

"Pathfinder the MMO! Get it now! ...er... try it anyway, while we still build it... it's not that much money. Anyway Pathfinder! Online! [well, not really 'Pathfinder' as such... it kinda has nothing to do with Pathfinder, but still.... trust us... I mean, Pathfinder has the name Pathfinder in it, so they're both the same thing really...]. Anyway, check out the awesome videos (just don't comment...we kinda, uh, disabled the comments.... no no no, no particular reason...uh, spam! Yeah, that's why, too much spam. Didn't want to distract people with comment spam. Yeah, that's it."

After they started putting out "test art work" a few months after the announcement, I had serious doubts. Being a 3D artist, I know what's what in that particular field. I saw artwork that looked like it was created by someone who "just got DAZ 3D a few months ago" and really put a lot of effort into learning the technical side of how to make something move, or how to give it a particular UV map and texture set up. In shot, the art was very amateurish. Flat textures, poor color choice and contrast, models had little in the way of unique silhouette's, animation was slow and mechanical with no weight and horrid timing (and virtually no follow-through or moving-holds). Just...newb-level all around.

I kept hoping they'd actually hire someone with a bit of experience and/or "pro training" (re: having taken a year or two course on 3D character animation at DAVE School, Vancouver Film School, or even online at Gnomon or Animation Mentor), where they'd actually learn animation principles, character appeal, colour theory, and all that other "non-3D" stuff that I learned waaaaay back in '98-'01 when I was at Vancouver Film School and CDIS (CDIS got bought out by Art Institute a couple years after I grad'ed). But no...they just had more of the same crap. Sorry for the harsh words, but there's no other way to put it when comparing it to a AAA-level game. Compaire PFO art to amateur level "in my basement, I do this on the weekend for a few hours, just for fun" level, and it holds up quite well. But PFO isn't aimed at that, nor it is being marketed as such. It's being marketed as "Play this instead of Guild Wars II, or WoW, or Wild Star!".

Sorry, Goblinworks, if this is the quality of 'art' you're bringing to the table, get ready to be dumped into a steaming bathtub o' poopie.

^_^

Paul L. Ming