New Update Oct 11. They are 2/3 the way there! May be any day!!!!!
NewCorp has been able to get commitments for two thirds of the money needed to fund the finishing of Pathfinder Online, but the final third has been difficult to say the least. Multiple times over the past 8 months, we have felt that we were days away from the final commitment only to have it fall apart at the last minute. If you look over the past NewCorp updates, you could probably pinpoint exactly when those events happened by the tone of the posts. Nothing is as frustrating as putting in all the time and effort into making those deals happen only to have them fall apart.
NewCorp has a very exciting meeting at the end of this week with a company that I hope can close that gap in funding. It is a super critical meeting and I want all of their efforts focused entirely on bringing the funding home so we can move onward towards the next phase. Which is why I agreed to take back over the community updates. If you see another update from NewCorp, it will be because they have closed the deal and are ready to move forward.
All time classic MY NEW FAVORITE POST! (Keep laying those bricks)
"I should point out that no other company has shipped out a beta on a disc before this." - Official Mortal Online Lead Community Moderator
Proudly wearing the Harbinger badge since Dec 23, 2017.
Coined the phrase "Role-Playing a Development Team" January 2018
"Oddly Slap is the main reason I stay in these forums." - Mystichaze April 9th 2018
What exactly does "finish up the project mean"? If they mean finish up on the same trajectory, that means throwing good money after bad. The project needs significant revamping, always has and will continue to do so.
It is still running on the Unity 4 engine, is it not? That was practically obsolete in 2009.
The game was excessively "grindy" in nearly every aspect of the game (character advancement, crafting, building structures and even gaining access to PVP without severe penalties).
I'm guessing they need about 20 million to salvage this project, and even with that this would be a low budget MMO.
Played: E&B, SWG, Eve, WoW, COH, WAR, POTBS, AOC, LOTRO, AUTO.A, AO, FE, TR, WWII, MWO, TSW, SWTOR, GW2, NWO, WoP, RUST, LIF, SOA, MORTAL, DFUW, AA, TF, PFO, ALBO, and many many others....
I'm guessing they need about 20 million to salvage this project, and even with that this would be a low budget MMO.
In today's market, 20 mil budget it's like for a triple A game!
Reporter: What's behind Blizzard success, and how do you make your gamers happy? Blizzard Boss: Making gamers happy is not my concern, making money.. yes!
Can't argue with fact the game was not supported,so to the few that do support it,idk maybe they are missing at least a bit of logic.After all i have seen people at least claim to like games you couldn't pay me $500 bucks a month to play.
What really bothers me is that seems VERY few know the real problem behind this game.The lady who owns the IP is actually to blame,she did not agree to enough expenditures to make a quality game,she personally asked to make it a budget build.
You cannot go half ass in to game design/build,it is a very risky,costly business,if you can't handle it ,stay away.Point being ,she should have never allowed this game to happen,perhaps somebody fed her some BS to entice her,no matter she made two bad decisions that gave the game no chance to be good let alone successful.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
I see no indication that my prediction is not likely. I have long predicted that Paizo / Goblin Works will drag this out until January. It is in January when the longest possible prepaid accounts from the Kickstarter will have to decide whether or not to resubscribe. They are likely to lose a few dozen or so subscribers and the player base will likely be small enough for them to close the doors.
if I'm proven wrong, then so be it, that is the nature of predictions.
Played: E&B, SWG, Eve, WoW, COH, WAR, POTBS, AOC, LOTRO, AUTO.A, AO, FE, TR, WWII, MWO, TSW, SWTOR, GW2, NWO, WoP, RUST, LIF, SOA, MORTAL, DFUW, AA, TF, PFO, ALBO, and many many others....
Bluddwolf do you believe the Lisa Stevens statements are insincere in their announcements of attempting to raise funding? Are you suggesting that Goblinworks is doing anything wrong or unethical in their efforts?
I see no indication that Goblinworks would need to wait until January to pull the plug. They can shutdown the game anytime they want and there will be no difference in repercussions. Their company can file bankruptcy and/or dissolve and avoid fulfilling all of their financial agreements. You've provided nothing in your repeated observations that explain why Kickstarter prepaid accounts would have any impact on their decision making. Employees no longer with the company were already paid out all Kickstarter funding money years ago. The company is allegedly running today on capital loans from "NewCorp" and current monthly subscriptions.
You can predict anything you want and claim you're not "wrong" until it doesn't come true. You can predict that EA has already bought Goblinworks and wants to keep the agreement under wraps. You can predict that Goblinworks is settling lawsuits with third party software. Just because you make a prediction doesn't mean there is any value in it unless you have supporting information.
After watching this trainwreck for over 2? years I have learned that @Bluddwolf 's guesses and observation are 10 times more accurate than the PR spin of this dubious company.
Bluddwolf's just been one of the most vocal opponents to root against an obviously sinking ship. He is actually being optimistic in this instance. I don't think Goblinworks has enough cunning to conspire in the first place and this theory is illogical to begin with.
There is no evidence of a January exit. Lisa Stevens and whoever is behind NewCorp don't have any plans at all. I do believe they are stringing people along but the real reason is to keep players subbing every month so that Lisa can continue to play the game and to keep Bob and Cole employed. If she collects all of the T3 recipes she wants and hits level 20 on all of her toons or either of them find another job then the game will be over. That could happen next week, January of next year or January 2020. Their decisions have nothing to do with the Kickstarter that ended nearly four years ago.
@ Vlarp I beg to differ on the point of January and the complete fulfillment of the Kickstarter not being important. You are forgetting that Ryan Dancey touted how successful the Kickstarter was, and at the time that was true. But, if the game shuts down before the last of the kickstarter pledges have been fulfilled then even that feather will fall from the hat. It really is a last shred of positive PR they can claim for the game.
Played: E&B, SWG, Eve, WoW, COH, WAR, POTBS, AOC, LOTRO, AUTO.A, AO, FE, TR, WWII, MWO, TSW, SWTOR, GW2, NWO, WoP, RUST, LIF, SOA, MORTAL, DFUW, AA, TF, PFO, ALBO, and many many others....
I hear your same conclusions repeatedly Bludd but not the supporting logic. Ryan Dancey was sh*tcanned and almost everyone is gone. Lisa Stevens is on record balling her eyes out over this fiasco. None of the Kickstarter bonus items were implemented. Many pledges were not fulfilled and will not be fulfilled by January.
Current players will be equally pissed whenever the game is shut down today or next year. Goblinworks will simply file bankruptcy either way. Paizo can continue to license their IP to Obsidian for future games no matter when Goblinworks dissolves. The overwhelming majority of fans of Paizo's tabletop products wanted nothing to do with PFO. There is absolutely nothing they can do to salvage this. January 2017 makes no difference.
You're giving them far more praise and credit in their planning capacity than they deserve.
I'm happy to hear that they got the investors to save PFO...but they have a ton of work cut out for them. The game needs to go away from a PvP/control focus and more into the traditional DnD adventure with sandbox elements on top of it. Not this...pesudo-EVE leveling thing they have going on, that bit needs to go, FAST.
The area that they've chosen to have the game is probably the richest area of story in terms of Pathfinder story, seriously go grab the actual sourcebook for this place in game, or check it out on a wiki. What their source material says and what they've come up with diverges so much, it almost physically hurts to see what they've created.
If their investor is bringing in the high eight to nine figures for their investment, then I think it can turn into a serious contender if they make good design choices. Right now we just need to wait and see if they make better design choices, or throw more money after the decisions that got them here in the first place.
LEL, you think they will get high 8 to 9 figures, what friggin planet are you living on?
At best they will get somewhere between 1 and 10 million, and probably a lot closer to 1 than 10.
"The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently."
I hear your same conclusions repeatedly Bludd but not the supporting logic. Ryan Dancey was sh*tcanned and almost everyone is gone. Lisa Stevens is on record balling her eyes out over this fiasco. None of the Kickstarter bonus items were implemented. Many pledges were not fulfilled and will not be fulfilled by January.
Current players will be equally pissed whenever the game is shut down today or next year. Goblinworks will simply file bankruptcy either way. Paizo can continue to license their IP to Obsidian for future games no matter when Goblinworks dissolves. The overwhelming majority of fans of Paizo's tabletop products wanted nothing to do with PFO. There is absolutely nothing they can do to salvage this. January 2017 makes no difference.
You're giving them far more praise and credit in their planning capacity than they deserve.
None of those previous pledges were directly tied to a prepaid, monthly subscription, that in my mind makes for an important difference in contrasting Kickstarter bonuses and promises.
Played: E&B, SWG, Eve, WoW, COH, WAR, POTBS, AOC, LOTRO, AUTO.A, AO, FE, TR, WWII, MWO, TSW, SWTOR, GW2, NWO, WoP, RUST, LIF, SOA, MORTAL, DFUW, AA, TF, PFO, ALBO, and many many others....
You're giving Goblinworks far too much dignity and forethought Bluddwolf. There is no difference. They took money for services they've yet to deliver.
Sometime in the next three months we'll see the final nail in the coffin of this ad nauseum irrational argument that Paizo is masterminding a January 2017 shutdown to "save face". We can continue to go over these reasons but ultimately the day will come and go like Y2K and 2012.
This whole thread makes me want to buy PFO and give it a go, damn curious for sure
/Cheers, Lahnmir
Go for it! Sometimes you can tell someone "Don't touch the stove. It's HOT!!!" 100 times, but they still have to touch it to learn for themselves.
My grandfather had a classic stove like that. On New Year he would always just swipe up all the fireworks and toss it into the fire although we told him it's dangerous. He nuked 2 stoves before he gave up trying to save on money for his fire wood.
This MMO is a bad concept. People sometimes get their money back from bad terms. You cannot promise no wipes and also risk massive item duping in player only economy. Investors lookout for lots of fraud potential here.
I think Bluddwolf is right they are launching the last wave of "gatherings" this weekend. It might be the finale before throwing in the towel.
I heard that other people got full refunds going back to Kickstarter pledges so if anyone is still hanging onto this game then now might be the last chance to do chargebacks or small claims court cases before they file bankruptcy. Their terms of service agreement was very poorly designed (big surprise from these fools) and I doubt it holds legal water...
I think Bluddwolf is right they are launching the last wave of "gatherings" this weekend. It might be the finale before throwing in the towel.
I heard that other people got full refunds going back to Kickstarter pledges so if anyone is still hanging onto this game then now might be the last chance to do chargebacks or small claims court cases before they file bankruptcy. Their terms of service agreement was very poorly designed (big surprise from these fools) and I doubt it holds legal water...
It was destined to fail, Ryan Dancey really had no clue what MMO players really look for. If PvP is at the core of your game, you can't punish players for PvPing because Care Bears don't want to be forced to PvP in a game who's core is PvP.
He also tried to develop the game on a shoestring budget, and decided to utilize an outdated game engine simply because it was free to use. This led to the game looking outdated and had no capacity of ever improving graphically. Not to mention that the game mechanics was extremely grindy and animations and game play was extremely clunky.
Combine up all of the bad decisions and I believe it is safe to say, a Junior High School computer club had a better chance to make a better game.
Played: E&B, SWG, Eve, WoW, COH, WAR, POTBS, AOC, LOTRO, AUTO.A, AO, FE, TR, WWII, MWO, TSW, SWTOR, GW2, NWO, WoP, RUST, LIF, SOA, MORTAL, DFUW, AA, TF, PFO, ALBO, and many many others....
I'm a big PF fan and knew very little about this game so I signed up with no expectations other than an average, presentable game experience in the PF universe. To say that I was disappointed beyond belief is an understatement. It's clunky, confusing and achingly dated. There is some genuine originality here but it's almost completely lost under a pile of bad design choices.
Now that I read all the drama going on with the state of the game, I understand it's sorry situation. I only wish I would have researched it before wasting my money. I just didn't expect an active game in 2017, based on a popular license and asking $15/month to look like and feel like an Alpha build of a 2009 title. Simply raising money to 'finish off' the game won't do it. As many have said, this thing needs a complete revamp from the ground up. Unfortunately, that seems unlikely.
Looks like their "NewCorp" has been unable to come up with funding. WOW.. who ever would have imagined that was going to happen...
But now in place of "NewCorp" is "NewHope". Some unnamed CEO of a Digital Agency spoke with Lisa and said they would examine PFO and tell her what possibilities exist(or don't) for funding. Boy that sounds soooooo promising!
Supposedly we should know by the end of January. This is nail bitingly suspenseful! Funny how the timing worked out as predicted on these forums...
As we enter the third year of Pathfinder Online, I wanted to bring you up to date on a number of things and give you an idea of where we are going in the short run.
First off, congrats on the server-wide success of our year-ending Legendpalooza! Together you successfully took down all the Gatherings of Legends on schedule and managed to get the maximum 10 Gatherings on January 7th. Bob and I were a bit skeptical that the challenge could be met, but you proved us wrong with long hours of game play, alliances between settlements, and an unwillingness to give in despite the holidays being in the middle of the whole challenge. This event was so successful that Bob and I will have to put our heads together and come up with another one sometime early this year.
The year 2016 will go down as one of exciting promises followed by disappointing letdowns. Numerous times during 2016, I felt that we were days away from being able to announce funding for the game, only to have it all fall apart at the last minute. It turns out that funding an MMO nowadays is much harder than ever and this has led to the hard road we have been on.
Much of the effort in 2016 was being led by NewCorp and their efforts to find funding. I have done what I can to assist with contacts and information, but for the most part, I have been on the sidelines as much as you all have.
As part of my New Year’s resolution, I am changing that going into 2017. At the end of 2016, I had the good fortune to be introduced to the CEO of one of the largest digital games agencies in the world. I talked to their CEO right before the holidays and they have agreed to examine Pathfinder Online and then talk to me about possibilities for the game’s further development. This is huge for me as their rolodex is much, much bigger than my own and they have a good feel for who might be interested in the game and the ability to approach them about it. Now, they may come back to me and tell me that there really isn’t a funding option available right now, but that is just as important to know.
Because as much as I want to see Pathfinder Online funded, this isn’t my line of work. I don’t understand the digital game industry. I have done what I could to explore options as they came to me or to reach out to people I have been introduced to in the industry, but ultimately, I have very little clue as to how likely any of my contacts are to come through with the funding. This agent changes that equation, by giving me the broadest possible list of potential answers and then getting me a quick resolution as to their feasibility.
The agent’s employees have been looking at the game, poring over design documents, and talking to Bob. While I have no firm timeline for their analysis, there is a strong possibility that I will have my first feedback by the end of January. If options for funding arise from that feedback, then of course it will take more time to run them to ground. If there aren’t any other funding choices, then at least we will know that and can decide where to go from there. I hate the idea that there are stones left unturned in my quest to get funding for the game. This agent will turn over all those stones for me and get me clarity on where we stand.
Now NewCorp isn’t entirely out of the picture. The agent may find someone who wants to fund a studio to make the game, in which case, they could be brought back into the mix. Heck, they may turn up funding that isn’t on their radar right now. Or things may evolve in a different way, with a different NewCorp. I will hopefully know a lot more in less than a month.
In the meantime, I have decided that we need to shake things up in the game and introduce settlement warfare! I was loath to add something so fundamental to the game with the possibility of funding coming at any time, but now I feel that I can tread water no longer. I have sat down with Bob and we have come up with a way to get this long-anticipated feature into the game. Check out his blog post right after this one for information. There are still details to finalize and work to be done, but this is something we hope to get into the game quickly. Taking over a settlement is not going to be something done quickly unless that settlement is undefended. It will cost the attacker quite a bit of resources to make the siege and to keep it up. There will be plenty of ways for a defender to stop the siege or prolong it. There will be a lot of logistics and supplies needed and people to carry out the attack.
With the introduction of settlement warfare, we will finally have versions of all the main systems in the game that we promised way back when we started. The map will be open to change and you will be able to make a settlement pay for any slight, real or imagined.
Bob will have more on this new mechanic as we roll forward including the recipes and resources needed and a better idea on what date we will be rolling this out on. Stay tuned to the Goblinworks forums for more info.
I want to thank you for your patience and wish you a healthy and prosperous 2017 both in game and out.
-Lisa
All time classic MY NEW FAVORITE POST! (Keep laying those bricks)
"I should point out that no other company has shipped out a beta on a disc before this." - Official Mortal Online Lead Community Moderator
Proudly wearing the Harbinger badge since Dec 23, 2017.
Coined the phrase "Role-Playing a Development Team" January 2018
"Oddly Slap is the main reason I stay in these forums." - Mystichaze April 9th 2018
Comments
NewCorp has been able to get commitments for two thirds of the money needed to fund the finishing of Pathfinder Online, but the final third has been difficult to say the least. Multiple times over the past 8 months, we have felt that we were days away from the final commitment only to have it fall apart at the last minute. If you look over the past NewCorp updates, you could probably pinpoint exactly when those events happened by the tone of the posts. Nothing is as frustrating as putting in all the time and effort into making those deals happen only to have them fall apart.
NewCorp has a very exciting meeting at the end of this week with a company that I hope can close that gap in funding. It is a super critical meeting and I want all of their efforts focused entirely on bringing the funding home so we can move onward towards the next phase. Which is why I agreed to take back over the community updates. If you see another update from NewCorp, it will be because they have closed the deal and are ready to move forward.
All time classic MY NEW FAVORITE POST! (Keep laying those bricks)
"I should point out that no other company has shipped out a beta on a disc before this." - Official Mortal Online Lead Community Moderator
Proudly wearing the Harbinger badge since Dec 23, 2017.
Coined the phrase "Role-Playing a Development Team" January 2018
"Oddly Slap is the main reason I stay in these forums." - Mystichaze April 9th 2018
It is still running on the Unity 4 engine, is it not? That was practically obsolete in 2009.
The game was excessively "grindy" in nearly every aspect of the game (character advancement, crafting, building structures and even gaining access to PVP without severe penalties).
I'm guessing they need about 20 million to salvage this project, and even with that this would be a low budget MMO.
Played: E&B, SWG, Eve, WoW, COH, WAR, POTBS, AOC, LOTRO, AUTO.A, AO, FE, TR, WWII, MWO, TSW, SWTOR, GW2, NWO, WoP, RUST, LIF, SOA, MORTAL, DFUW, AA, TF, PFO, ALBO, and many many others....
Reporter: What's behind Blizzard success, and how do you make your gamers happy?
Blizzard Boss: Making gamers happy is not my concern, making money.. yes!
What really bothers me is that seems VERY few know the real problem behind this game.The lady who owns the IP is actually to blame,she did not agree to enough expenditures to make a quality game,she personally asked to make it a budget build.
You cannot go half ass in to game design/build,it is a very risky,costly business,if you can't handle it ,stay away.Point being ,she should have never allowed this game to happen,perhaps somebody fed her some BS to entice her,no matter she made two bad decisions that gave the game no chance to be good let alone successful.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
if I'm proven wrong, then so be it, that is the nature of predictions.
Played: E&B, SWG, Eve, WoW, COH, WAR, POTBS, AOC, LOTRO, AUTO.A, AO, FE, TR, WWII, MWO, TSW, SWTOR, GW2, NWO, WoP, RUST, LIF, SOA, MORTAL, DFUW, AA, TF, PFO, ALBO, and many many others....
I see no indication that Goblinworks would need to wait until January to pull the plug. They can shutdown the game anytime they want and there will be no difference in repercussions. Their company can file bankruptcy and/or dissolve and avoid fulfilling all of their financial agreements. You've provided nothing in your repeated observations that explain why Kickstarter prepaid accounts would have any impact on their decision making. Employees no longer with the company were already paid out all Kickstarter funding money years ago. The company is allegedly running today on capital loans from "NewCorp" and current monthly subscriptions.
You can predict anything you want and claim you're not "wrong" until it doesn't come true. You can predict that EA has already bought Goblinworks and wants to keep the agreement under wraps. You can predict that Goblinworks is settling lawsuits with third party software. Just because you make a prediction doesn't mean there is any value in it unless you have supporting information.
There is no evidence of a January exit. Lisa Stevens and whoever is behind NewCorp don't have any plans at all. I do believe they are stringing people along but the real reason is to keep players subbing every month so that Lisa can continue to play the game and to keep Bob and Cole employed. If she collects all of the T3 recipes she wants and hits level 20 on all of her toons or either of them find another job then the game will be over. That could happen next week, January of next year or January 2020. Their decisions have nothing to do with the Kickstarter that ended nearly four years ago.
Played: E&B, SWG, Eve, WoW, COH, WAR, POTBS, AOC, LOTRO, AUTO.A, AO, FE, TR, WWII, MWO, TSW, SWTOR, GW2, NWO, WoP, RUST, LIF, SOA, MORTAL, DFUW, AA, TF, PFO, ALBO, and many many others....
Current players will be equally pissed whenever the game is shut down today or next year. Goblinworks will simply file bankruptcy either way. Paizo can continue to license their IP to Obsidian for future games no matter when Goblinworks dissolves. The overwhelming majority of fans of Paizo's tabletop products wanted nothing to do with PFO. There is absolutely nothing they can do to salvage this. January 2017 makes no difference.
You're giving them far more praise and credit in their planning capacity than they deserve.
LEL, you think they will get high 8 to 9 figures, what friggin planet are you living on?
At best they will get somewhere between 1 and 10 million, and probably a lot closer to 1 than 10.
"The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently."
- Friedrich Nietzsche
None of those previous pledges were directly tied to a prepaid, monthly subscription, that in my mind makes for an important difference in contrasting Kickstarter bonuses and promises.
Played: E&B, SWG, Eve, WoW, COH, WAR, POTBS, AOC, LOTRO, AUTO.A, AO, FE, TR, WWII, MWO, TSW, SWTOR, GW2, NWO, WoP, RUST, LIF, SOA, MORTAL, DFUW, AA, TF, PFO, ALBO, and many many others....
Sometime in the next three months we'll see the final nail in the coffin of this ad nauseum irrational argument that Paizo is masterminding a January 2017 shutdown to "save face". We can continue to go over these reasons but ultimately the day will come and go like Y2K and 2012.
/Cheers,
Lahnmir
Kyleran on yours sincerely
'But there are many. You can play them entirely solo, and even offline. Also, you are wrong by default.'
Ikcin in response to yours sincerely debating whether or not single-player offline MMOs exist...
'This does not apply just to ED but SC or any other game. What they will get is Rebirth/X4, likely prettier but equally underwhelming and pointless.
It is incredibly difficult to design some meaningfull leg content that would fit a space ship game - simply because it is not a leg game.
It is just huge resource waste....'
Gdemami absolutely not being an armchair developer
Sometimes you can tell someone "Don't touch the stove. It's HOT!!!" 100 times, but they still have to touch it to learn for themselves.
All time classic MY NEW FAVORITE POST! (Keep laying those bricks)
"I should point out that no other company has shipped out a beta on a disc before this." - Official Mortal Online Lead Community Moderator
Proudly wearing the Harbinger badge since Dec 23, 2017.
Coined the phrase "Role-Playing a Development Team" January 2018
"Oddly Slap is the main reason I stay in these forums." - Mystichaze April 9th 2018
On New Year he would always just swipe up all the fireworks and toss it into the fire although we told him it's dangerous.
He nuked 2 stoves before he gave up trying to save on money for his fire wood.
Are they still charging a monthly sub for alpha testing?
Played: E&B, SWG, Eve, WoW, COH, WAR, POTBS, AOC, LOTRO, AUTO.A, AO, FE, TR, WWII, MWO, TSW, SWTOR, GW2, NWO, WoP, RUST, LIF, SOA, MORTAL, DFUW, AA, TF, PFO, ALBO, and many many others....
Co-Founder of Elder Moot
SotA Founder
Played: E&B, SWG, Eve, WoW, COH, WAR, POTBS, AOC, LOTRO, AUTO.A, AO, FE, TR, WWII, MWO, TSW, SWTOR, GW2, NWO, WoP, RUST, LIF, SOA, MORTAL, DFUW, AA, TF, PFO, ALBO, and many many others....
I heard that other people got full refunds going back to Kickstarter pledges so if anyone is still hanging onto this game then now might be the last chance to do chargebacks or small claims court cases before they file bankruptcy. Their terms of service agreement was very poorly designed (big surprise from these fools) and I doubt it holds legal water...
He also tried to develop the game on a shoestring budget, and decided to utilize an outdated game engine simply because it was free to use. This led to the game looking outdated and had no capacity of ever improving graphically. Not to mention that the game mechanics was extremely grindy and animations and game play was extremely clunky.
Combine up all of the bad decisions and I believe it is safe to say, a Junior High School computer club had a better chance to make a better game.
Played: E&B, SWG, Eve, WoW, COH, WAR, POTBS, AOC, LOTRO, AUTO.A, AO, FE, TR, WWII, MWO, TSW, SWTOR, GW2, NWO, WoP, RUST, LIF, SOA, MORTAL, DFUW, AA, TF, PFO, ALBO, and many many others....
Now that I read all the drama going on with the state of the game, I understand it's sorry situation. I only wish I would have researched it before wasting my money. I just didn't expect an active game in 2017, based on a popular license and asking $15/month to look like and feel like an Alpha build of a 2009 title. Simply raising money to 'finish off' the game won't do it. As many have said, this thing needs a complete revamp from the ground up. Unfortunately, that seems unlikely.
But now in place of "NewCorp" is "NewHope". Some unnamed CEO of a Digital Agency spoke with Lisa and said they would examine PFO and tell her what possibilities exist(or don't) for funding. Boy that sounds soooooo promising!
Supposedly we should know by the end of January. This is nail bitingly suspenseful!
Funny how the timing worked out as predicted on these forums...
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Update from Lisa
Posted by: Bob Settles Jan. 13, 2017
Happy 2017 River Kingdoms!
As we enter the third year of Pathfinder Online, I wanted to bring you up to date on a number of things and give you an idea of where we are going in the short run.
First off, congrats on the server-wide success of our year-ending Legendpalooza! Together you successfully took down all the Gatherings of Legends on schedule and managed to get the maximum 10 Gatherings on January 7th. Bob and I were a bit skeptical that the challenge could be met, but you proved us wrong with long hours of game play, alliances between settlements, and an unwillingness to give in despite the holidays being in the middle of the whole challenge. This event was so successful that Bob and I will have to put our heads together and come up with another one sometime early this year.
The year 2016 will go down as one of exciting promises followed by disappointing letdowns. Numerous times during 2016, I felt that we were days away from being able to announce funding for the game, only to have it all fall apart at the last minute. It turns out that funding an MMO nowadays is much harder than ever and this has led to the hard road we have been on.
Much of the effort in 2016 was being led by NewCorp and their efforts to find funding. I have done what I can to assist with contacts and information, but for the most part, I have been on the sidelines as much as you all have.
As part of my New Year’s resolution, I am changing that going into 2017. At the end of 2016, I had the good fortune to be introduced to the CEO of one of the largest digital games agencies in the world. I talked to their CEO right before the holidays and they have agreed to examine Pathfinder Online and then talk to me about possibilities for the game’s further development. This is huge for me as their rolodex is much, much bigger than my own and they have a good feel for who might be interested in the game and the ability to approach them about it. Now, they may come back to me and tell me that there really isn’t a funding option available right now, but that is just as important to know.
Because as much as I want to see Pathfinder Online funded, this isn’t my line of work. I don’t understand the digital game industry. I have done what I could to explore options as they came to me or to reach out to people I have been introduced to in the industry, but ultimately, I have very little clue as to how likely any of my contacts are to come through with the funding. This agent changes that equation, by giving me the broadest possible list of potential answers and then getting me a quick resolution as to their feasibility.
The agent’s employees have been looking at the game, poring over design documents, and talking to Bob. While I have no firm timeline for their analysis, there is a strong possibility that I will have my first feedback by the end of January. If options for funding arise from that feedback, then of course it will take more time to run them to ground. If there aren’t any other funding choices, then at least we will know that and can decide where to go from there. I hate the idea that there are stones left unturned in my quest to get funding for the game. This agent will turn over all those stones for me and get me clarity on where we stand.
Now NewCorp isn’t entirely out of the picture. The agent may find someone who wants to fund a studio to make the game, in which case, they could be brought back into the mix. Heck, they may turn up funding that isn’t on their radar right now. Or things may evolve in a different way, with a different NewCorp. I will hopefully know a lot more in less than a month.
In the meantime, I have decided that we need to shake things up in the game and introduce settlement warfare! I was loath to add something so fundamental to the game with the possibility of funding coming at any time, but now I feel that I can tread water no longer. I have sat down with Bob and we have come up with a way to get this long-anticipated feature into the game. Check out his blog post right after this one for information. There are still details to finalize and work to be done, but this is something we hope to get into the game quickly. Taking over a settlement is not going to be something done quickly unless that settlement is undefended. It will cost the attacker quite a bit of resources to make the siege and to keep it up. There will be plenty of ways for a defender to stop the siege or prolong it. There will be a lot of logistics and supplies needed and people to carry out the attack.
With the introduction of settlement warfare, we will finally have versions of all the main systems in the game that we promised way back when we started. The map will be open to change and you will be able to make a settlement pay for any slight, real or imagined.
Bob will have more on this new mechanic as we roll forward including the recipes and resources needed and a better idea on what date we will be rolling this out on. Stay tuned to the Goblinworks forums for more info.
I want to thank you for your patience and wish you a healthy and prosperous 2017 both in game and out.
-Lisa
All time classic MY NEW FAVORITE POST! (Keep laying those bricks)
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