Posted on November 23, 2011
Pathfinder MMO
It looks like Paizo has a spin off company called Goblinworks that is developing a Pathfinder MMO. This seems like a good, albeit risky, way for them to expand their brand and compete with Wizards/Hasbro. I’ve never played an MMO or online at all except a few failed attempts at NHL 10. Maybe Paizo can convert me. Everything else they done has been really impressive to me.
I’m really skeptical. I’m not experienced with MMOs beyond WoW and crippled-Star Wars, but one thing I don’t think either did was add value to an existing storyline.
It was fine to play WoW as someone who didn’t give two hoots about the story or the setting or anything other than beating magic pants out of boars. And there were some good storylines that developed in WoW, but I can’t imagine that it really enhanced the Warcraft story or setting in a way that allowed the Warcraft story to continue beyond WoW. That is; when WoW worked as a narrative, it was only in such a way that precluded the narrative from continuing in anything other than WoW.
Paizo don’t have that luxury – their world is going to continue outside the MMO. It makes sense that they’ve gone the Neverwinter route and cordoned off part of the world for MMO, but still, how great could the game be if nothing you do in it has an effect on the world at large.
Maybe Star Wars The Old Republic will change my mind, but I don’t see a Golarion-MMO adding anything of value to the game.
I’m kind of curious about this thing. I mean, odds are it’ll be free-to-play/pay-to-win, right? So if it’s something I can jump into for nothing I trust that the quality of the stuff there will be enough that it might actually be worth putzing around in. You know, mostly at work, but I bet I’ll take a run at it.
Honestly the confluence of f2p games becoming actually compelling enough to make you pay to see stuff (rather than pay to compete in the “serious” parts of the game like previous ones) is pretty cool to me. The Mechwarrior MMO is going to be a test for me of whether any of that stuff is ever going to get its hooks in me. By the time this one comes out, I might be a PC gamer again, and I really do like the Pathfinder setting enough that I’d take a serious poke at this, especially if it was f2p.
It’s a good thing this laptop I’m typing on is starting to near the end of its service life. The next year of MMO releases might see me dipping my toe back into this kind of shit if I have a computer capable of running it..