Raise your hand if you knew Pathfinder Online was already playable?

Yea, me neither.

But it is, and my friend Rynnik hooked me up with a buddy key to take a look. To use his words, Pathfinder right now is 2003 EVE. That’s both the ultimate compliment and a reality check.

The good is the systems behind Pathfinder and the feel of the world are great. The game is very much a virtual world ala EVE, and that is exciting. Fantasy EVE has been something a lot of us have been waiting for since.. well almost 2003 really.

The bad is Pathfinder isn’t even close to ready. There is a massive amount of desync going on right now, which is so bad that even PvE combat is terrible. Stuff dies, but you don’t know if you are swinging or not, and it just doesn’t work. Graphically the game is very weak, other window dressing is almost non-existent, and the UI is… well EVE 2003 quality.

What drives me nuts is you have a game like Darkfall, which has hand-down the best combat and ‘feel’ in an MMO, but is missing so much in terms of design and long-term depth. Then you have Pathfinder, which has filled all the holes DF had, but is missing all of DF’s strengths. Can’t someone get both right? I’m not even asking for perfect, but just get both decent to start off?

So yea, Pathfinder is on my radar, and already has a core following that loves it, but until it takes some big steps in a few areas, it’s not something I’m going to dive into right now.