Ryan Dancey has posted Goblinworks' first design diary regarding the upcoming PATHFINDER Online MMO. It's a great read, and covers the initial philosophy and intentions behind the plan; a "sandbox MMO with theme park elements". Ryan, as you may know, used to be VP of WotC (and shepherded in D&D 3E and the Open Gaming License), and more recently has been heavility involved with CCP's Eve Online MMO. Also involved are Paizo themselves, and Mark Halmes, of City of Heroes fame.
And when we say "coming soon," we mean "real soon."
We're leveraging middleware to reduce cost, development time and risk. We're making a sandbox-focused game with a launch target of 4,500 players on a slow but steady growth plan. We have access to Paizo's huge library of Pathfinder content—which gives us all the lore, factions, history, monsters, plots, and NPCs that we'll need. Because of these factors, I was able to rise to Lisa's challenge to create an efficient business plan that meets all of our goals. And one of the best parts of it is that it means our development plan is much shorter than traditional theme park MMOs require. Once we've begun full production, we'll be sharing milestones with the community so you'll be able to track our progress from start to release. We think you'll be delighted at the speed of the development process.
We're leveraging middleware to reduce cost, development time and risk. We're making a sandbox-focused game with a launch target of 4,500 players on a slow but steady growth plan. We have access to Paizo's huge library of Pathfinder content—which gives us all the lore, factions, history, monsters, plots, and NPCs that we'll need. Because of these factors, I was able to rise to Lisa's challenge to create an efficient business plan that meets all of our goals. And one of the best parts of it is that it means our development plan is much shorter than traditional theme park MMOs require. Once we've begun full production, we'll be sharing milestones with the community so you'll be able to track our progress from start to release. We think you'll be delighted at the speed of the development process.
