Future of PoxNora Discussion

This is really exciting, the amount of nostalgia I have for this game and the times I enjoyed with others playing it is huge. Best of luck, I will definitely check it out.

 

This feels like de ja vu except that last time pox wasn't dead. Hopefully lessons have been learned about partnerships with large companies and cross-platform releases. Pox was always an indie game and successful at being an indie game. Glad the game is coming back though and I will happily provide feedback.

 

I guess at this point any news is good news, but I don't think expanding the world of Poxnora into other genres is smart. Stick with your bread and butter. I know Riot Games is doing it, but Riot Games is a multi-million dollar company. DoG/Octopi/Whateverthe**** is not. Take it from a guy in the restaurant industry, you wanna keep your menu simple and short. Don't make Caribbean food if you are an Italian joint. It'll bite you in the ass in food cost and you probably won't sell a lot of it.

Take it slow, we're patient enough for it to be done correctly. I'd say just like Sokolov suggested, release the game, expansion by expansion, fixing the messy code and modernizing things on the way.

 

Anything happening is good news, but this is pretty much how I feel.

If I wanted to play some random RPG or board game then there are tons of those out there already - and, no disrespect to Octopi, there are probably better funded and designed ones.

What I want to play is Pox, preferably remade to 2019 graphics standards but based on the same basic game play that has kept me hanging around for decades. While this is so overdue that half the old players are in nursing homes now, there is still a certain amount of ready made momentum for this.

The worry is that this is an attempt to use the Pox name to develop funding/hype for a project which has nothing to do with Pox, and while you might get a few old poxers to try out, I doubt many would stick around long enough to make it successful.

edit: having said that, if the focus is to make the 'next gen tactical' pox 2 on the same basic premise, then that is excellent news.

 

I am not going to talk about the art book, or board game right now, ill send a personal dm about my tips for those.

When it comes to the computer game Pox Nora, i think your first priority should be to accrue trust. While it might not have been any of the now existing members of the team that had anything to do with the last year an a half of radio silence, it will be seen that way from most. The best way to gain that trust is to be transparent, honest, take opinions seriously. Capitulate does this very well by having almost bi weekly updates on his game, as well as being very active in his respective discord helping and such. So it would be nice if you not only looked at our ideas, but told us YOUR THOUGHTS to our ideas.... something like "yes Gnomes, we like or dislike idea X, and here are our reasons for it"

I personally dont think this game can ever go big again, at least not pox 1. The graphics are far to dated, and the stigma around the game much too negative. The only way you could hope to make the game BIG would be too re-release the game completely reworked, with graphics in the same vain as SC1 went too SC2. But that would take years with a dedicated and large team, so i wont speak of that either.

If you want the pox we have right now to be the best version of itself that it can be, so it may just stand the tales of time, as age of empires does, even with its old graphics. here are my suggestions:

1. Release the 30th expansion, so that we have a nice round number, and then leave it at that. (also because of all the effort already put into it)

2. Bug fix the hell out of everything we have right now on the unity client.

3. It is my opinion that if the game was completely or mostly bug free, and then there were just minor strength buffs and nerfs every 3-4 months to keep things interesting(with RANK RESET...), then this game could stay living forever.

This game will never have major general population value, and going to a 3 expansion system to limit the amount of information that new players need to take in, wont help that. If you ever get a pox 2 up, then yes thats a very good idea. but for what we have right now, your best bet is to just leave it as is.

 

I hope Octopi can find a better business model than the "collectible" card game. This game was always obscenely expensive and that aspect of it turned off all my gamer friends that tried it. The whole pack buying lottery system is too much like gambling. One could essentially buy advantage by being able and willing to spend more money to have all the best runes. I think ad supported with an option to pay for ad-less would be a much better way to go. Let's face it, I've probably spend thousands of dollars over the years on these digital items that have ultimately been proven worthless. I'd like to play this game again, but I'd not be willing to irresponsibly spend so much money on it. I'm not a college kid with disposable income anymore. I got real grown-up bills now and less free time, too boot. Anyway, I wish Octopi the best of luck in their resurrection. It was a great game and I hope it can reborn, better!

 

I like the Book of Demons approach Octopi is taking, and I support this 120%; Think Truck, Beta Dwarf, Supercell...PoxNora falls into a place where every asset is unique with the occasional instance of seeing multiple of the same piece in-game; the lack of reused assets is what really takes the game from novelty to nostalgia; something only a game as old as this could amass, and yet this design pillar has been there with Octopi/SOE/DOG...I'm looking forward to this next year having something official, I'm still working on my side of things just in case anything can be worked out.

Hopefully Octopi is in the position to lend out the rights, or however it goes, to some of it's players. I'm not sure how this would work but I am open to going through the process, I've wanted to build a part of PoxNora for a long while now. My goal has been to make high fidelity models for production; game, cinematic, sculpt/print.

I never played GuildWars2 but I have the artbook; there's an excerpt that mentions how the game is set hundreds of years after the events from the original GW; I always thought this would be a fun treatment for Poxnora to receive and now it is!

 

So I'm a bit confused from the Dev post. Is Pox 2 happening or not?
Honestly all I want is a working client, graphics are OK as they are.

 

Make it open source and keep art ©.

 

Wow I was absent for quite time and now see some great news! I think that devs should rerelease original Pox Nora up to something like Drums of War expansion as "Pox Nora Classic" for PC/android. Stabile version of this game could be good start for Pox Nora 2. After some time just add limited runes, reskins and such and earn money. Long live Poxnora!

 

The big question is funding and manpower. There is likely a gap between what is ideal and what is realistic and we need to find what the middle ground is. Moving forward we need to know what our realistic expectations should be otherwise the playerbase will be disappointed. Until these questions are answered I am going to operate purely off of what I feel the perfect world version of Pox is. Once they are answered I will adjust my expectations and make suggestions based off of what can realistically be accomplished. So what does Poxnora look like in a perfect world?

In a perfect world Poxnora would reach the same mainstream success as games such as Hearthstone. The question is how do we get there? Poxnora has a number of unique advantages that can help us get there. First of all it exists in a genre that is virtually untapped but is similar to genres that have recently become mainstream. Hearthstone, Gwent, MtG Online are all doing very well in the card game categories. Games like Wargroove, TFT and auto chess show that there is interest in tactics and tabletop type games. Poxnora just needs to find its home in between as a tabletop tactics game. Secondly it has an absurd amount of pre-existing lore and art assets. You don't need to start over and write a new story or go out and develop your own art style. Lastly, your game genre is perfectly suited for mobile gaming which can give you a massive boost in visibility, playerbase and income.

The first priority needs to be the client. It's the first thing all players will encounter. Things like deck building, checklists, ability descriptions, etc. should all be in the client and easy to access.

The second priority needs to be the economy. By this I mean the rate that players earn new runes. For this game to be successful players need to feel like it can reasonably be free-to-play. Games like Hearthstone and Gwent give casual players 1-2 packs per day and Poxnora should be similar. I think the games revenue should be primarily cosmetics based. Add a skin system so instead of having 5 different Euan runes a player can just add Euan to their deck and then select which skin they want to be using. This would also help with re-using old art assets. You could release old runes and then later release a skin that would bring them up to current art standards. I also think the game can sustain a season pass type system. Have 8 different expansion passes, one for each faction. Purchasing a season pass and completing it would allow the player to receive all of that faction's runes for the expansion and maybe some cosmetics along the way.

The 3rd priority needs to be the gameplay. I feel like the games are potentially too long. 20-30 minutes should be the average with an hour being the longest a game goes on. I'm not entirely sure how this would be enforced but its most likely going to be tied to map design and balance.

 

Hello! first off thank you so much im so excited! Im not gonna side with the doom and gloomers! i want to be positive and hope for the best! please show me and other where we can financially support this project pox nora means so much to me! and i would love love love the art work PLEASE! also can we please have poxnora continue to run and be playable thank you so much! also If larger donations are required or larger funding perhaps i should say PM me perhaps i might be able to help!

 

Well, until they change my mind, they get a meh from me. I understand something is better than nothing, but they have strung us along now for a long time. They have attempted risky/unwanted ventures to try and earn them money when it seems to me that if they would have focused on their game at hand it would have been a wiser move for them.

I do like the idea of a "Pox Nora Classic" like P99 did with Everquest. Blizzard did it with WoW and the success with these "relaunches" seems to be credible. I joined Pox in '09 with the Dawn of Elements expansion and so I didn't get to live through the launch of Pox. So a Pox Nora Classic with progressive expansion releases like @Sokolov mentioned would be very interesting.

My question is, if they revert to the java version, how far back do they go? Back to the original attack/defense ratings and fully customizable runes or do we return to the major update that SOE did?

Anyways, its interesting to see some chatter. Let's just hope they aren't wasting our time with a false sense of something BIG.... again...

 

I actually like the model pox had of selling expansion cards every few months, but making them available through rewards eventually.

Lets the people who want them early pay, but doesn’t stop freeloaders from playing with the slightly older stuff.

 

I love poxnora, and I just popped in to see if it was still playable for nostalgia. Sad to see that it is mostly dead but good to see some activity. I really loved the strategy and deck building component but disliked the financial model behind this game. I have no interest in collecting runes or internet cards. I enjoyed putting together interesting battlegroups and testing them in the field. Unfortunately the cost was way too high to play the way I wanted to and I eventually moved on. The way the expansions were handled seemed to benefit legacy players more than newer ones and there were too many barriers to catch up or even get going. Obtaining previous legendaries, like angels, cost way too much if you used the most recent expansions cards as trading chips. Also, every time you built a new battlegroup you had to go through a strenuous trading process or trade everything to poxbox at a loss.

I think a model that let new players catch up for a nominal fee, say $20 per a faction, would fare much better going forward. Good luck,I am interested to see where pox and the copies, like essence born, go.

 

Just add a win condition which that says at the end of the game whoever has the most points wins.

 

Curious to see what this new project will produce.

 

I'd like to say that removing attrition from a war game would be a huge no. That's not to say I wouldn't want to join in on a cute little 10-20 minute raiding spree once in a while, but I'd be hard pressed to find a reason outside of individual choice (don't get me started on gaming addiciton) that we should cater the entirety of the game to people that are approaching the discussion already with their reasoning being they don't have "enough" time to play, by choice. A game that may extended past the average expected length and is then succeeded to the one who was in all honesty more prepared for the engagement to begin with should be the ultimate goal; preparation not regulation...it's a game and we won't be able to catch all the fish.

Granted, maps may bound this issue to an extent, however these are the early cries of Dominion(Riots additional take on MOBAs) which if we are going to entertain the discussion should be clearly pegged as a stretch goal on a very long roadmap.

I'm not sure there is a simple fix; and if the scope of the game is too big (which I think it is to have <20minute skirmishes) then I'm more inclined to entertain matchmaking-objectives to the effect of revamping Daily/Heroic challenges (or adding to them) conditions/prerequisites that would otherwise add more dynamic gameplay to individual maps/matchups/battle group composition.

King of the Hill
Capture the Flag
Last Man Standing

These are just a few, of many, children's games that can be assigned to an open ended match. Adding any kind of global variable that culls strategy and bottlenecks decision making is an immediate red flag that the game will not be able to stand on whatever may be propping it up...oh yeah NOSTALGIA...for a digital tabletop/tactical strategy game...could you imagine if chess was invented during this day and age, the sheer amount of catering to others would be the sole reason it would never see the light of day.

Short answer; Here's a juice box kid...watch the adults play, maybe you'll learn something. Time-management, resource-management, management-management...the list goes on.
Abstract answer; First, thank you for reading this far. Second, I have nothing against amputees, but I do have a problem with witch doctors experimenting in the 21st century and effectively mutilating a working system. Call me old fashioned.
Long Answer; Well, if you're reading this far then I can only hope it took more time than was expected and you didn't get too anxious with that fact. Considering the breadth of games out there, PoxNora has been "The Game" so many of us come back for, time and time again, and if you are of the mind you want more PoxNora, then you'll have to be of the camp that has 40+ minute games with the possibility of it extending close to an hour or two, AND be so overwhelmed with additional game titles that are/should be developed by Octopi under the guise of "play these for 10-15 minutes if you REALLY, REALLY...REeeeeeALLY need that Pox fix"

Of course; all this being said...I can develop my game however I want and I get that, but as someone looking at the numbers (which are a 1:1 of PoxNora) I'm not seeing the appeal when I have to que up over and over just to struggle through the same win conditions as I would if I were to sit myself down and think critically for an unknown amount of time. One opponent or Five opponents does not make me feel any more accomplishment, rather having learned from a failure or turning a match around after the point of no return is the win condition I can entertain. This being said under the impression that the additional titles will fill the void for those who need 10minutes taken away from their lives at the tap of an app.

I'll never forget what another player once told be in combat. I was playing Traitorous Helm and Ethereal Pool, during a time where other members of the community were hand holding newcomers, I was whole heartedly willing to sabotage their first match (DOGs should have prioritized better was my reasoning) with mechanics that didn't render on screen, or by hiding Ethereal Pool behind my shrine to really get the noobs mind turning. I don't remember their name, but after several decided victories I got matched with a player that knew how to play the game and their response to my "Hammer & Nail" battlegroup was to deploy a shadow spawned unit and rush my shrine, effectively putting a wrench in my engine. Their response before completely destroying my shrine was "I know what you're doing" along with something else profound I can't put into words since it was a 10-15 minute discussion AFTER THE MATCH...which would have never happened had there been some kind of global variable to stop the match at the end of 20 minutes.

TL;DR (If you read only this you probably need better time-management yourself, kid, bub, buddy-ole-pal) Attrition is a valid tactic and as gamers we tend to side with it by grinding that next level (also don't get me started on lack of congruency between player level and achievement)...the argument here is, more chances to win, or loose for that matter, against someone on a handicapped playing field. Hard pass on something that disrupts the entire game loop. Arms wide open for KotH/CTF/LMS

Repeat after me...

King of the Hill
Capture the Flag
Last Man Standing

You're welcome for nipping this argument in the butt here. No need to quote and respond with your opinion, we don't have these features...yet. And yes, They would solve any of the problems Attrition-nay-Sayers could present all the while supporting and strengthening the already well established core-gameplay loop.

Final thoughts; It was not the gameplay loop (at least not the Core loop) that was reason for the communities dying out(*cough* DOGs lack of prioritization *cough*), also there has never been a precedent for standardizing the time it takes to win a war, rather they are won by admittedly something as novel as a children's game...KingoftheHillCapturetheFlagLastManStanding

 

It was just idea . . . whoa.