Goblinworks: Looking Back - Robert Lashley at MMORPG.com

SBFord · September 2015

Goblinworks: Looking Back - Robert Lashley at MMORPG.com

Goblinworks went through a major transformation this week. It’s been on a slow descent for the past year and finally crash landed the other day. Read on for Rob Lashley’s take on what went wrong and what we hope to see for the Pathfinder IP going forward.

Read the full story here

ROFLcopter13 · September 2015

i knew this was gonna happen, so did many others. I mean, you didn't have to be an expert to see where this game was going, what with charging a sub fee for ALPHA access (this game had so little features it crippled game play.) EXP wasnt earned, you gained XP passively a minute, which was absurd, so it didn't matter how hard you worked, your efforts were stonewalled. Go out and kill 1000 mobs in 2 hours? Guess what buddy you got the same exp as someone standing in town afk for 2 hours. Yup, I am not kidding you. Also, the inventory system was horrendous. There was encumbrance and no loot windows. When you killed something anything and everything it had went straight into your inventory, you had no chat window feedback of what was looted, the only way to see what you got - if anything was to (after every friggin kill!) open your loot window and see if anything changed. The way to organize loot was very convoluted and clunky at best. The combat wasn't that bad, the animations could have used some work. The graphics weren't too bad either, they could have used some polish, but graphics and animation are just polish and fluff (its what makes a game purdy! kind of things that in the end, aren't as important (to most people) as the core gameplay mechanics. I mean, no XP from killing anything totally removes any motivation of going out and hunting to progress. At that point all you're doing is going out and farming gear and "stuff". People need more of a reason to go farm. Removing one of the key aspects of getting stuff AND progressing exp-wise is just gonna suck that little bit of fun and enjoyment out of your game. If I go out and kill 1000 people with a damn machete you better damn well bet that by the time I get to victim number 999 I am gonna be a machete-wielding god! Anyhoo, I digress. I probably sound like I hate the game, which I don't but it had many glaring issues staring you right in the face in the first 30 minutes of playing, and lets be real - that first 30 minutes is what grabs a players attention (or is supposed to) and is supposed to be the first impression someone gets of a game. If your game is utter poop in the first 30 minutes, hell even the first HOUR you can be rest assured you are doing something wrong. I mentioned the above issues in chat and flamed, trolled, called out and told to "go back to WoW" if I wanted XP per kill and loot windows.. Really? REALLY? Because WoW is the ONLY EFFING GAME in the world that has proper inventory management and loot windows and xp per you know doing shit other than standing around... amirite?? When I took to the forums to explain why I was quitting and let them know how i was treated in chat I had one guy come on there and call me out and be a jerk to me also, he had the same mentality of the people in chat. Here I am, a new player, voicing my concerns and impressions of a new game and treated like that? No wonder its now dead. GG.

Blinkenn · September 2015

I backed the tech demo, for the Thornkeep book, but stayed away from the 2nd kickstarter after seeing the Ryan Dancey design elements like pvp and EVE-like experience progression, both elements very far removed from its namesake PnP game.
I also don't get why wouldn't they just shut it down. I can't imagine the recent news has encouraged more publishers coming out of the woodwork, as mentioned in the CEO letter.

GrumpyHobbit · September 2015

Why is it always a surprise to people when an MMORPG using a tabletop IP decides PvP is ultra important and then fails. Tabletop RPG'ers hardly ever engage in PvP (at least from my measly 35 years of doing it). It is mostly about having fun with friends against the environment and not t-bagging the other players....that is best left to console gaming. PvP in MMORPG's and literally brought the whole genre down imo which is why the games being released in MMO format have bored me for a number of years and my desire to purchase SP RPG's has increased. Games like Fallout 4, Sword Coast legends, The Witcher....and many more...all get my money but I haven't actually purchased an MMO for a number of years now.

Slapshot1188 · September 2015

Wow. This could be the best article I have ever seen on this site. No pulling punches. No careful wording. No attempting to avoid offending fans. Well done!

Slapshot1188 · September 2015

I'd also add that if this feedback was given all along maybe we wouldn't have seen all these guys lose their jobs. MMORPG.COM needs to allow bad games to be called bad.

Take the lead. Not doing so results in what happened to GW.

Grakulen · September 2015

Slapshot1188 said:

Wow. This could be the best article I have ever seen on this site. Well done!

Thank you.

Deianira · September 2015

Oh, look, first-ever post here!

Excellent article.

I’m sorry to see this happen, but am unsurprised. And while I suspect the game will fold, I offer these comments in the event it does not.

I’m an early backer of Pathfinder Online, and was a middling presence on Paizo’s PfO forum (not so much on GoblinWorks’ forum). I backed at the guild level, but of the nine friends-and-family involved, only five of us ever tried it; one did little more than run around the starter zone before giving up, two played a few times, and only my husband and I kept at it (and I suspect he was playing only because I was and not because he enjoyed it). I quit in early May, my subscription lapsed on June 4th, and while I’ve kept an eye on the various forums since then, I haven’t been back.

I backed the project because of the Pathfinder name and reputation, but the game isn’t very much like Pathfinder. Maybe moving it in-house, with Lisa Stevens in charge, will change that.

So, in the interests of offering the feedback of an enthusiastic backer who loved the concept but disliked the game itself enough to quit, despite a generally great community I’d love to spend time with again, here are my “problem areas”. Note that these are based on the last time I played, so some specifics have likely changed. They are NOT a laundry list of Things to Change, just my subjective observations of the things that irritated or disappointed me. Cumulatively, they drove me away.

Also, it is worth noting that I chose to post this here rather than on GoblinWorks or Paizo (where I’m better known) as most negative comments there are descended upon with the fury of a pack (herd? flock?) of rabid ferrets. It might help the game’s reputation if its most dedicated players dialed back the hostility. In any case, I’m really not interested in arguing these points with any rabid ferrets, and the likelihood of that happening is less, posting here rather than there.

1. Graphics were NOT an issue for me. Thought I’d get that one out of the way up front. Yes, they’re dated and clunky, but they’re the frosting on the cake. I’ll be perfectly happy with a tasty, unfrosted cake, but I won’t be happy eating a thin veneer of delicious cream cheese frosting on a stale cracker. Graphics can be fixed later on. There are goblins, and that was enough for me on the graphics front.

2. I typically refer to myself as a “non-PvPer” rather than an “anti-PvPer”. My focus is on RP and PvE, but I’ve enjoyed large-scale PvP in other games; what I don’t like is random small-scale PvP during my (limited) play time; however nice my opponent(s) may be – and they rarely are - I still feel that I’ve been robbed of that evening’s hour or so of entertainment doing what I wanted to do, in order to entertain Random Killer #6349 doing what s/he wanted to do. Given the original Kickstarter emphasis on negative consequences for random player killing, I felt confident backing the project. I’ll note here in shouty caps: in the time I played PfO, I encountered NO random PvP. PvP WAS NOT AN ISSUE for me. But I thought my aversion to random PvP, and my willingness to back the project anyway, is worth noting here as PvP has always been a central topic when it comes to PfO’s design.

3. Skill training was a nightmare for me. Part of this, I suspect, is that I started with a ton of points to spend, so was overwhelmed by options. I consider myself a “casual time sink” player: I’ll cheerfully spend hours on the forums and in game, but I’m neither interested in reading guides, nor invested in optimizing my characters. I’ve got a character concept and I build to that, however weird the results are. Give me clear, simple choices for skill training. And for heaven’s sake, don’t make me run all over the place buying near-mandatory useful skills (stealth, I’m looking at you) from multiple trainers! Consider offering a clear path for single-track characters (“You want to be a fire mage? Go to Trainer Phoenix and buy all the skills in red!”) and including all necessary cross-class skills (hit points, self heal, stealth, whatever) on all trainers. Possibly already done – it’s been months since I played – and if not it’s a long-term goal at best, and possibly one not many people want, but the wide-open, buy-whatever-you-want-and-by-the-way-you’ll-need-to-see-multiple-trainers system was a HUGE turnoff for me. And ugh, don’t get me started on the plethora of gods-damned keywords! Regarding this whole general topic, one of my friends summed it up this way: “If I can’t just log in, understand the skill system well enough to train a halfway decent character, and gear up easily, then I’m not playing.” And he hasn’t. And after trying for several months, I'm not either.

4. The emphasis on a need for large settlements de-emphasized, for me, the heroic, small-group nature of tabletop, and made me feel like a small cog in a very big machine – and that’s despite being quickly promoted/given more responsibilities in each of the groups I joined (one pre-game, one in-game). I’m just not a large-group sort of person, but at the same time, I want to feel I have a substantial voice if I’m going to be “living” in a player-run settlement. Perhaps, with more players and/or a smaller, more densely-populated area and/or not introducing settlements so early, I’d have felt differently.

5. Gameplay was simply not interesting. Also, at times, actively frustrating – for example, in one group session the fighters were unable to pull mobs’ attention away from my mage, and I died so often my armor went to zero durability and disappeared. (Please note, here, that I’ve been playing tabletop since 1978 and online since 1995 – I know HOW to play, but that was no help in this instance. I believe it was due to some skill effects not being in yet?) Realism, PvP, yes, I know – but incredibly frustrating nonetheless. That was my last play session but one, and in the interest of full disclosure that experience weighed heavily in my decision to quit. I don’t want to have to gear up, or skill up, like a tank in order to play a mage; it doesn’t “feel” right to my RP-oriented brain.

6. A time-based xp system rewards early, constant backers at the expense of people who take a break or simply start later. The longer I am away, the further behind the power curve I am. As I’m a casual player, that’s usually not an issue – I’m back in WoW right now after quitting early in the Pandaria expansion, and I still don’t have a character at 90, much less 100, and that doesn’t bother me at all – but in a PvP-enabled game, that behind-the-curve-and-facing-powerful-optimized-attackers feeling makes me even less likely to return. Not sure there is a solution for this one, but there you have it.

I truly do hope the game succeeds, and I hope one day it will be in a state that appeals to me – and that that state is clearly communicated out-of-game. It’s why I still keep an eye on the forums (here, Paizo and GoblinWorks). Also, and on a brighter note, I understand that the Hellknights Most Wanted art is done, so I look forward to seeing Deianira Sunstorm’s wanted poster in the Emerald Spire PDF! I’d still really like to actually play her one day, though.

PottedPlant22 · September 2015

Slapshot1188 said:

I'd also add that if this feedback was given all along maybe we wouldn't have seen all these guys lose their jobs. MMORPG.COM needs to allow bad games to be called bad.

Take the lead. Not doing so results in what happened to GW.

I disagree. Ryan Dancey was stubborn to say the least. He didn't listen to the community and he certainly didn't listen to the gaming media either. His hubris and unwilling to change 6 months ago or sooner is why they are here now. The business model should have been adjusted. They should have looked for better talent honestly. I hate to say someone wasn't doing a great job, but it just kind of felt like that. The animations, the UI, the feel for the whole thing just didn't feel right. And it never really got any better as the game went along.

Slapshot1188 · September 2015

He was IMHO insulated from reality by surrounding himself by an echo chamber that shouted down dissent. Until the review... what negative feedback was given by this site? As the author said... it was terrible by all standards. Bad games need to be called out as bad games. Not protected from criticism. That path led to all these folks losing their jobs which is a horrendous situation all around.

Robsolf · September 2015

PvP was meant to be a buffer for the lack of content, and the RT based XP was used to keep subs coming in from people who currently don't think the game is worth playing, but thought it would get better. Boy did THOSE people get screwed...

I feel bad for anybody that had high hopes for this game, but how anyone could fail to see this coming...

PS: Man... those screenshots look like 2008 gfx... like LotRO, but devoid of love and taste...

donger56 · September 2015

Another failed crowdfunding game, and no one is surprised.

NordicApache · September 2015

Saw this coming. I spent time on the Teamspeak with the Devs while playing. They refused to listen to anyone that had feedback with out throwing out insults and being condescending. Good riddance.

Bluddwolf · September 2015

I have two points to address here: First. although I don't disagree with a lot of the assessment of the game Robert Lashley wrote, I don;t agree that it is his place to say whether of not the game should keep its doors open or not. Many games, need I remind him, get a second chance when they cut loose their Lead Designers, Project Managers or even CEOs of companies. Lisa Stevens has stepped in and said that she is open to discussion on next steps to take. Whether that works or not remains to be seen, but what she does not deserve is for her opportunity to be shit on before she even has a chance. Is it MMORPG's goal to ensure that some other investor reads your article and says "No, I won't give it a shot?" Despite some of your articles accurate points, the over all tone of it comes off as a shitpost. Now, for the rabid fanbois like this one:

"PFOFIREFIGHTER: wrote" The trolls over there are gleefully screeching. Worst thing I ever read from a so called gaming site.

The years of posters like this letting Ryan Dancey blow smoke up their asses, and they his, is also how the game state got to where it is now. Posters touting Ryan Dancey's vision of PFO as going to be the savior of the MMO genre, or how there was some huge and possible majority of the MMO gaming community clamoring for an Open World PVP Sandbox that severely limited or outright punished all but very specific forms of PVP. Or a game that would court TT players with no experience of PVP or limited but strongly adverse to PVP views and then throw them into a game that has a stated end game of territorial control and settlement vs. settlement combat. So on both sides of this argument we have losers, in that no one got what they were really looking for or promised. But that doesn't mean the game can not have a reset, a second chance much like Age of Conan or Darkfall UW have taken advantage of.

PottedPlant22 · September 2015

Bluddwolf said:

I have two points to address here: First. although I don't disagree with a lot of the assessment of the game Robert Lashley wrote, I don;t agree that it is his place to say whether of not the game should keep its doors open or not. Many games, need I remind him, get a second chance when they cut loose their Lead Designers, Project Managers or even CEOs of companies. Lisa Stevens has stepped in and said that she is open to discussion on next steps to take. Whether that works or not remains to be seen, but what she does not deserve is for her opportunity to be shit on before she even has a chance. Is it MMORPG's goal to ensure that some other investor reads your article and says "No, I won't give it a shot?" Despite some of your articles accurate points, the over all tone of it comes off as a shitpost. Now, for the rabid fanbois like this one:
"PFOFIREFIGHTER: wrote" The trolls over there are gleefully screeching. Worst thing I ever read from a so called gaming site.
The years of posters like this letting Ryan Dancey blow smoke up their asses, and they his, is also how the game state got to where it is now. Posters touting Ryan Dancey's vision of PFO as going to be the savior of the MMO genre, or how there was some huge and possible majority of the MMO gaming community clamoring for an Open World PVP Sandbox that severely limited or outright punished all but very specific forms of PVP. Or a game that would court TT players with no experience of PVP or limited but strongly adverse to PVP views and then throw them into a game that has a stated end game of territorial control and settlement vs. settlement combat. So on both sides of this argument we have losers, in that no one got what they were really looking for or promised. But that doesn't mean the game can not have a reset, a second chance much like Age of Conan or Darkfall UW have taken advantage of.

Or Final Fantasy 14

Jacxolope · September 2015

Slapshot1188 said:

Wow. This could be the best article I have ever seen on this site. No pulling punches. No careful wording. No attempting to avoid offending fans. Well done!

100%- great article, very surprising to be reading something like this from any gaming website. This isnt sugarcoated - This is the truth. This is credible.

Bringslite · September 2015

double post

Bringslite · September 2015

Just a cpl things and not an argument. 1. As I understood it, the exp/time model was part to keep players from maxing out in a week or two (accessing endgame content in a month and then for a month), getting bored and then leaving. Partly to level the playfield for those that have less than hours daily to play. The trade off and motivation to go out and attack those 1000 goblins was that despite piled up exp, you need achievements to progress your skills. 2. Just regularly playing, the achievements flow in easily. When you start with piled exp, the achievements feel like a grind. That is flaw #1 (this from a fan boi). Flaw #2 is that just playing regularly, you end up with all of the achievements that you need well before you have the exp to buy the skills. Then you end up waiting for the exp and that is rough. 3. Another mistake: Development of content for those that manage companies (mini guilds) and settlements seemed to take precedence over development for 90% of the player base. I am a settlement leader and I have been harping on this for some time. 4. I just wanted to get this out there about the exp model. 5. Despite it's flaws, Pathfinder Online is actually very fun and rewarding to play. Not in a traditional way. In a game like WoW, I can solo to the top and only end game with rigid guild rules for raiding wait for me there. In PfO, I need a community to achieve things. Everything is designed with socially cooperative mechanics in mind. It does take a village and your personal value and prowess is really a cumulative of your company and your settlement. Note that here is another glaring flaw: Few to no social tools to work that better. However, we have made do with what we have while lobbying for them. 6. The bottom line is that the game is really difficult to grasp from the outside. On the inside, wrapped up daily in working toward socially shared goals, part of a team that is more than a dungeon raid group, trying to plan and build Cities, accumulate wealth-recipes-skills you don't so much get turned off by the things that aren't there yet. Your focus is more finite. Those that got in early are doing all of this. Those that get in later, but don't get into such a group will have a hard time seeing past the many normal MMO flaws. I know this because there are new recruits that "get it" and stay with the groups that live it. That still does not mean that I feel everyone should like a game designed this way. 7. So, the game was already limited by being conceived and engineered as a "niche" game and a new approach. Follow that with simply mistaken target marketing, implementation of features out of order, and (I do like Ryan Dancey) inflexibility in the face of outer community rejection of presentation/modeling. I believe that the game was conceived, then built (so far), and modeled with a totally inflexible approach. No real Plan B. 8. The best thing that has happened? The team is small now. The team is forced to slow down and look back at what is done, what REALLY needs getting done, and doing it slowly and better the first time. All of the egos are gone. Much of the creative and real business savvy is still here and taking direct control. If anyone can pull this off, it is the remaining team directed by Lisa Stevens = http://paizo.com/paizo/blog/v5748dyo5ld43?Paizo-Publishings-10th-Anniversary My apologies but I still can't seem to use the simplest posting functions here. If you read this, Thank You for your patience.

Slapshot1188 · September 2015

Grakulen said:

Slapshot1188 said:

Wow. This could be the best article I have ever seen on this site. Well done!

Thank you.

No. Thank YOU! I hope this is the start of something that continues.

Ozmodan · September 2015

Typical of any Indie MMO. There comes a point when without a whale to continue funding there is no point in going on.

This game always had serious flaws and the developers just ignored those that pointed them out. If you are going to use an IP you had better tie it to that IP instead of going off in your own direction.

Burntvet · September 2015

Jacxolope said:

Slapshot1188 said:

Wow. This could be the best article I have ever seen on this site. No pulling punches. No careful wording. No attempting to avoid offending fans. Well done!

100%- great article, very surprising to be reading something like this from any gaming website. This isnt sugarcoated - This is the truth. This is credible.

Easy to do when there is no chance of them ever being a paid advertiser.

The chance of getting the same candor in regards to a Trion or Cryptic game are about nil.

damond5031 · September 2015

Blinkenn said:

I backed the tech demo, for the Thornkeep book, but stayed away from the 2nd kickstarter after seeing the Ryan Dancey design elements like pvp and EVE-like experience progression, both elements very far removed from its namesake PnP game.
I also don't get why wouldn't they just shut it down. I can't imagine the recent news has encouraged more publishers coming out of the woodwork, as mentioned in the CEO letter.

Goblinworks wants the few remaining paying costumers to believe the game might be saved by a new developer. I believe all development has stopped and future sub money will be used to pay debts, and salaries for the remaining employees, before the game shuts down.

PottedPlant22 · September 2015

Slapshot1188 said:

Until the review... what negative feedback was given by this site?

ummm...
they gave the game 4.5 review a few months ago.

ROFLcopter13 · September 2015

Sorry, I should have given credence and props to the OP for this article, yes it was a good article and very well-written. More articles like this should be released more, no more sugar-coating please. If a title sucks please tell us. You can be diplomatic without pulling punches. In a society where people are so scared of offending; you have to maintain a balance of truth as well. If something sucks, the people need to know about it. The reason why bad titles like this get released is because the only negative feedback thats usually given are by the unbiased public - the players.

goboygo · September 2015

Was the outcome ever in doubt based on the first builds? It was pretty clear the developers didn't really have a handle on a project of this size. I hate to pour salt on the wound, but pretty much every system top to bottom was poorly executed. The quality level on the project was honestly about a 3 of 10 in everything I saw. Pretty depressing. I remember actually feel sorry for the development staff the first time I played it. It was .........embarrassing.

TsaboHavoc · September 2015

what killed this game wasnt any of the designs choices, it was the very poor implementation of them all. Game is broken on its foundation (coding of engine) and the only way to go is scrap all over or abandon and move foward.

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