Chapter 8 Questions & Answers

[Azraeth]

Please ask any and all Chapter 8 related questions here! <3

[Cliff Worthington]

Please ask any and all Chapter 8 related questions here! <3

Gamers no longer have a choice if everything is done through writing.

This seriously feels like a giant "F*** You" to myself.

I put money into the game. I'm active daily, grinding on the grid and doing stuff. I make forum posts to engage the community, asking them what they'd like to see.

Now I no longer have a CHOICE in chapters unless I write, which I no longer have the spark to do for any character I use on grid.

My question is, how can you, the admin team, make this right to the people who don't write, but will have to deal with changes to the grid, and I reiterate, with no choice in the matter.

[Azraeth]

The choice to move to purely roleplay influenced chapters was one not easily arrived at, which took months of discussion. In fact, David and I have been talking about it since I became a Dev. Or really since before chapter 6. I'm hoping by making some of our reasoning clear, it will become obvious that...

This seriously feels like a giant "F*** You" to myself.

...the above is not true. We had to make some choices for the future of Path, and none of our choices were based on insulting you or any other gamer.

First, and foremost - it's a matter of economy. David and I keep having to pour our energy into things outside of Path because we need to make money and because we need to put our time into projects that are likely to be profitable in some way. Which doesn't mean we don't love path - we just have to prioritize it accordingly. This means we have less time to devote to it. Which means less time to code things for chapters. Less time to deal with balancing game systems. Less time for bugs related to chapters, etc. Essentially, moving purely to roleplay to determine chapters means less work for us, but it also means that you guys continue to get an evolving story which doesn't remain stagnant.

The alternative is that David and I just don't release chapters anymore, because the time just isn't there. I'm only beginning to get back into bug fixing, and between community code/relic unlocks and bug fixing, much of David's time is taken up.

So it's a matter of either there being no chapters at all or them taking the shape they do now.

Which leads to point two - the story. David and I very much want to see it continue. I will always be willing to write chapter material because I love Path's lore and I love the way the story has evolved over time. I think a significant chunk of people still on Path feel the same way.

I also personally don't understand the gamer/roleplayer divide. To me, everyone on Path is a member, and I don't think David ever intended for them to be treated like interest groups. Ultimately, the way I see it, everyone on Path has a voice, a choice, and the ability to write. I rarely see people who are purely gamers. Most often, I find that people call themselves gamers and then write through other media outside of the site or they write periodically (but infrequently), or they would like to write but have real life constraints. For those people...

I do agree that having an option open to people who are purely gamers would be nice, but those tend to be very tricky to balance, prone to bugs, and usually cause David and I nothing but drama. If you have an interesting idea that would work for our purposes, not be prone to imbalance issues, bugs, or drama - and which does not require a lot of new coding for every chapter - we are all ears.

David and I don't want to see anyone left out - we just had to go with the option that was the most sustainable for our purposes, but which still allows people to shape the story and see it continue to evolve.

Sincere apologies if anyone is bothered/offended by the change, but thems the breaks.

[Levi DAmico]

As I see it, Chapters are canon/roleplay orientated. If you don't want to involve yourself in the roleplay aspects of Path, then I am curious as to why this change in how the Chapters are run could be such a problem to the "gamer community".

If the gameplay changes in Path as a result of a Chapter update, is it any different to a regular update from any other game developer that occurs in their game?

For example, if apples became the new fruit instead of oranges in a game with no story, would one still cry foul over not being able to affect the change?

I'm honestly confused by the uproar based on my logic.

[Alexandrea]

I get it, I liked how the chapters used to be. With both grid and forum having an influence on a chapter slider that we could work together on (or not) and see the progress we were making (or not) towards our goal(s).

But I also get where the guys are coming from (Josh and David) and how time-consuming this all is. Esp., the grid side. They can't spend all their time here, even if path was making them a ton of cash which it most def. isn't.

So if it's a choice between the chapters being this way or no way? I'll take them any way I can get them. I have always been very invested in Path and want to see where the story will go, however it takes to get there.

[Sullivan (DELETED 11708)]

I agree. I think the right choice was made here and I'm happy to be able to get involved.

I've had experience in games past that were heavily influenced by the character's actions. You didn't have to be the best writer in the world to get involved and some of the most influential players wrote 'text speak'.

I'm too new to Path to properly understand the gamer/rper divide, but, I do see Claire's point. If the Chapters are completely to do with Path's lore and story, this choice shouldn't matter to someone who doesn't care about the story and just wants to grind.

On the other hand, I understand that because there's been a history of Path giving players the option of responding with both game and rper actions, I can see why people could take offence to the change. Nobody enjoys having to compromise or get half of the cake instead of the whole thing, but if we just switch our perspectives a bit, we can see that we're still getting to eat cake. Cake is awesome. So is Path.

[Alexandrea]

Cake! O.O

[Azraeth]

I also enjoy cake. <3

[Cliff Worthington]

I'm just going to leave this here.

General
Total characters: 946
Active (past 7 days): 117
New (past 7 days): 12
Total unique players: 610
Active unique players: 70

70 unique players. How many of them are left out from advancing the story.


Also Josh, here's a list of things.

Extend on hacking.
Make a hacking labyrinth.
More NPCs like that Rogue Vampire that spawns in the city.
---Have them show up on the hitlist
---Set their battle tactics to flee and/or retaliate
---Random Stats for these NPCs
NPCs in the shadowrealm. Make Fadewalking useful.
New World Bosses like that Alpha Fadebeast.
New areas in old locations, make them relevant, like The Hunting Grounds.

Also. The cake is a lie.

[Alexandrea]

And all that would be awesome, Cliff.

But updating the grid takes code work that even if the guys have time to get to it? It takes longer and is a LOT more work than the roleplay side.

I have also put a lot of money into this game and I want the grid to be equal to the forum with groovy updates and just as much influence on story.

You have to remember that the guys are working for free here, the money they've gotten from the game is a spit in the bucket.