Pathfinder Online Early Enrollment Updated, Holdings and Outposts Added

Those of you who pledged $35 or more in the Pathfinder Online Kickstarter campaign will be happy to hear that the game’s “early enrollment” phase has seen a significant update that adds holdings, outposts, and Duergar to the fantasy MMORPG. There’s a full set of patch notes over on the official website, as well:

This update includes a major new feature: Holdings & Outposts. We’ve blogged about this feature extensively and we’re very happy to be deploying it. This feature will be iterated substantially in the next two Early Enrollment updates with additional features and polish.

You need to be the Leader or an Officer of a Company to place a Holding or Outpost. Your Company must have 100 avaialble Influence for a Holding, and 50 for an Outpost. To claim a Hex (place a Holding) the Hex must be clear of Escalations and you have to find the area where the Holding can be placed (usually in the middle of the Hex) and clear it of any monsters that have spawned there. Right-clicking on the Kit in your inventory will place a pin on your Local Map showing you the proper location if you’re close enough. Right-click on the Kit to begin construction when you’re in the right area.

Holdings cannot be deployed in Hexes with a Blue “NPC” shield icon or the six Hexes around NPC Settlements, in a “Pass” Hex (the hexes marked with an “X” on the World Map), in Monster Hexes, Badlands Hexes, Hexes currently containing a Tower or potential future Settlement Hexes. Because a Holding cannot be built in those Hexes, Outposts cannot be constructed either.

In Early Enrollment v7, Holdings will provide Local Vault storage, and they have Trainers. The Trainers will provide a reduced level of Training even less than NPC Settlements.

A future iteration of this feature will enable Companies to upgrade their Holdings and some of those upgrades include increases to Trainer levels. Other upgrades will include refining facilities, guards, etc. The upgrade potential of a Holding will be related to the “+” value of the Kit used to build it. Each “+” of the Kit represents a potential level of upgrade (up to +5). It is likely that you will be able to retroactively apply an improved Kit to an existing Holding to increase it’s upgrade potential but that system has not been finalized.

Outposts are designed to generate Bulk Resources. Bulk Resources are not consumed in Early Enrollment v7 so it is best to plan on just banking them for later use. They are generated at the start of the PvP window for the Holding and automatically appear in the Holding’s Vault. In future releases first Holdings, then Settlements will consume Bulk Resources in relation to how advanced they are, and without Bulk Resources they’ll decline and eventually be destroyed.