How to make SotA great (please read carefully before posting)

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by Corv, Jun 21, 2018.

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  1. Alleine Dragonfyre

    Alleine Dragonfyre Avatar

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    The lack of social media representation on YouTube, Reddit and Steam is a disgrace. I am very sorry to say, but between the denial of long-time backers of actual player numbers, reviews etc and Ports complete refusal (one dev told me "It's just too toxic") to put themselves out there to DEFEND THEIR OWN GAME is just so damn frustrating.

    Just throwing money at the game and hiding in this tiny space on the Internet does NOT work anymore. Perhaps it never did. When I say the gaming community, as a whole, has rejected the game...or its real money aspect, I've been challenged time and time again with deniers here. THEY ask me to prove it. Prove it to yourselves, man, and get outside this hole of a forum and see what the people we're trying to woo ARE ACTUALLY SAYING. Denial won't help this game. It never did.

    Solution? Create a program with titles and incentives and get volunteers to do it. People like myself and @Vladamir Begemot have been trying to do it for a very long time. We need help, and Port's support.

    Even more importantly, LISTEN, to the feedback brought back and ACT on it.

    Have someone on staff streaming at all times answering questions, displaying systems and fun things, etc. There are 1000's of ways to connect with the public in those spaces.

    I'll be back with another bomb later. Right now... dentist.
     
    Last edited: Jun 27, 2018
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  2. Cora Cuz'avich

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    - why are you, as a (former?) Ultima / Garriott fan and backer not interested in SotA anymore?

    I am still interested, but my free time has recently taken a hit, and unfortunately, SotA bears the brunt of that. I was playing maybe 20 hours a week, but now I'm down to around 3-5, because I lack the time.

    - Why are you, even though you are playing, not happy with the game?

    The story. Both its depth, and implementation. I think the core of a great story is there, but I don't really know what it is. To be fair, I would expect episode 1 to be the pilot episode, and not necessarily the entirety of the deep story we've been told about at the beginning of every telethon. That said- at the end of a pilot, you should have some idea of where things are going next. Not where they'll end up, but you should know the major players, regional politics, some lore and history. Most of what I know about those things comes from reading the novel, and since the novel takes place some point before current day, and is still missing two sequels, there are a lot of holes that need filling. The only real antagonists (outside of temporary quest-related ones) are the cabalists, and we know little about that. Maybe an outlander is going to be their leader? They don't seem to like that? Maybe? And then something about rebels and Darkstarr? I have no idea. The first episode desperately needs a denouement that lays out some idea of what's next, in a clear and concise way.

    Where is all the lore? I've started reading a lot of the in-game books, and I'm really shocked how little of them deal with the history of the land, the factions living there, politics... I have found some of these things, but so very little. It's such a small thing, but it would add so much. The history, lore, and story are where SotA should be beating the pants out of the other games, but I often feel like Super Mario Bros. is more fleshed out.

    Additionally, the conversation system is woefully inadequate. Even if the story is there, the method by which this information is relayed to you is so godawful you miss most of it. Don't give people so much dialogue at once that it scrolls. Having to click "Continue" every paragraph might get annoying, but it would be orders of magnitude less annoying than scrolling back up to see what was said. When multiple NPCs are involved, such as when Samael is with you, give multiple speakers different text colors so it is very obvious that, of the last four paragraphs I just scrolled back through, it's super clear when another person is interjecting. And- for the love all that is holy, unholy, and everything in between- LINE BREAKS. After each paragraph. Between a paragraph and flavor text. Especially between text given by different speakers. And the worst offender of all: "I wrote of this in my Journal." When I see that, I want to punch my monitor. If I just spoke to somebody, they should tell me everything. Not tell me one thing, and then make me go digging through the mess that SotA calls a "journal" to see what else they told me.

    I am okay with the combat. It took a long time to figure it all out, but now that I have, it works well for me. Grinding isn't so bad, all games have that. Crafting is a nice start, but needs more variation to end products. Weapon and armor can have better stats (MW/enchant, anyway) based on your skill. I would love to see that added to all crafting, even if it means crafted items no longer stack. I'd love if my potions at GM were better than a new player's potions at level 1. Then you have a reason to seek out certain player's goods. Putting all your crafting XP into a specific tree would have some meaning, instead of spreading it all around to get decent enough at all crafting to make most of your own stuff.


    - What can be done to make this game more appealing to your friends?

    Hm. I don't really have any friends. This is my first online game of any sort, and I'm only slowly becoming accustomed to the social aspects.

    - What went wrong and how can we fix it?


    Overall, I was excited for a story driven game, whose online aspects would give me something else to do between/after questing. For fixing, see above.
     
    Last edited: Jun 27, 2018
  3. Mimner

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    This is a great idea (and great entire post @Kyri). I can't tell you how many times I've been frustrated by negative reviews where it was obvious that they never scratched the surface of this game.
     
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  4. Vladamir Begemot

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    100% agree. If we can't show up in the tough part of the internet and say "Whoa, there are some of us who really LOVE this game!" then I guess we can't really complain about the way it gets shredded there, and all the people that would have been playing who are instead driven away by people who's only connection to the game is attacking it.

    It's very damaging to the games reputation, and quite often untrue. But when there's only one or two people who speak up for the game then people just naturally assume the attacks are the facts because there are more people saying them.

    If you care about the game, represent.
     
  5. Mykll

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    With all of the "actionable feedback" here I don't think all the blame can be put on people being critical as to why this game and company has a damaged reputation.
     
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  6. Cora Cuz'avich

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    Hopefully, this is all being read. I think the current shakeup has brought out a large amount of very reasoned, useful feedback. (I suspect it's one thing to get on the forums and be all "OMG THIS NERF STOP PLZ!" and another to think that maybe the game's future is in jeopardy.)
     
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  7. Beaumaris

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    The SOTA team deserves a little credit for social media presence on sites like FB and Twitter. Its not as if they are doing nothing. But I agree. SOTA might benefit from further branding in the 'right' communities. Right being the 'operative' word. By right, I mean within communities that are already organized around RPGs and have a propensity to enjoy SOTA's style of game play. Not in communities that largely are organized as discussion boards only that can just have a tendency to hate just for hate sake. While I follow Reddit, I do see why it is known as being a 'downer' of a site (for many games). I wouldn't want the dev team spending their time nor our backer dollars weighing in there. I think the team needs to be cautious to separate social media branding from the need to weigh in on social discourse, social debate, or social pyschotherapy.

    To get back on the OP, if I could improve one thing right now to make SOTA a better game, I'd improve the Overland Map. Its such an important scene in that it welds all of the others together. To love the game, one really ought to be able to love the Overland Scene that we see in nearly every other zone change. And I still think it needs more work to step it up a notch to be more alive.
     
    Last edited: Jun 27, 2018
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  8. Hornpipe

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    Well, my post here and many posts in this thread are repeating criticisms and remarks that had been made sometimes a year or two earlier (or even more, according to some people).

    I just think they never had the will to make something else than what they did, simply.

    As I said once to @Chris :
    They know very well what they are responsible for. It was up to them to use wisely the money they collected, in order to give this game every chance to succeed. They certainly did what they thought was right. Far be it from me to judge the decisions they made on how they designed this game. Developing a playable game so early before the release is rare and involves a lot of traps and obstacles.

    But still, I can say that the implication of certain people seemed not sufficient enough to me and that I (and far too many people among the MMORPG fans) do not like the result enough to play it. I also think that, as veterans game creators, they should have been more attentive to the alarm signals. The future will tell if the game can survive as it is, if the remaining team can make corrections that will revive the hype or if Shroud is going to die. In any case, it seems clear to everyone (well, almost :rolleyes:, as long as some people still believe that firing a part of the team is a natural step in the developpement process of a game which doesn't feel like it is finished) that the hype will not come back without several changes (and many people give clues about those here, in my opinion).

    Personally, I would prefer Shroud to be successful even if I decide not to play it anymore because I have a financial interest in this project and because there are people whose job depends on this game.
     
    Last edited: Jun 27, 2018
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  9. Cora Cuz'avich

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    True. But my hope is that cutting half the staff will lead to some introspection. It has definitely resulted in the community doing so.
     
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  10. Hornpipe

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    I still have to do my own :D
     
  11. Cora Cuz'avich

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    I thought you already had. ;)
     
  12. Addison

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    It's great that the community has, but what would be really helpful is if the remaining development team would as well! :D
     
  13. Hornpipe

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    Unfortunately, it's an endless process for me ^^
     
  14. Pikegirl

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    +1. Exactly.

    Make SotA a niche game with a real niche at least, or something that it does particularly well. And I don't mean having the most painless RMT in the industry, even though it does.
     
    Last edited: Jun 27, 2018
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  15. Alleine Dragonfyre

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    I'm sorry but you are being WAY too generous with the credit thing, almost to the point of denial and we don't need any more denial here. Please stop with the "its not for everyone" when it's very clear it's not for most people in the state it's in. I'm not talking just Reddit here. We need to stop blaming other sites for the game's issues.

    Social Media IS marketing in 2018. Port blew their wad (yeah all those golden houses) on "Marketing" when the marketing ship already sailed. How do you market a game whose potential fan base has already seen tons of negative reviews and videos? Very hard but, perhaps, still not impossible. SotA could still be "the little kickstarter game that was too loved to fail." In reality, however, and for now, the marketing and social media was a complete fail. Again, it's been purposely avoided because "it's too toxic."

    I'm not sure what you mean by "the right communities." You cannot pick what people say about the game or where. People will go to where they normally go for information, not where you hope they will go. Unless, of course, you mean small-time fan sites of RPGs and such, then yeah, I'd throw a few bucks at some ads but it wouldn't be my main foucs here at all.

    I'm not just talking Reddit, Steam and FB and Twitter. I'm talking Massively, MMORPG.com, PCGamer, YouTube, etc. They are all considered types of social media now and we need to cover ALL of them. It's a very important job and no one was doing it. For a while I was wondering if it was an attempt at literal self-sabotage.

    During the last livestream they said they were going to "crunch the numbers" to see why the Seed Invest marketing failed. No need, guys. It's not that hard to figure out. It's just a shame they used all that capital to "market" a game that wasn't ready.

    The bottom line is the game needs to change in ways the feedback coming in says it needs to. THEN we publicize the game. In the meantime, we cannot stop people from talking on social media, Steam or Reddit but we need to be there for it and communicate.

    All we can do is mitigate what they say with FACTS and be engaged. For ever person here that thinks that Portalarium is accessible and open to feed back, there are 100 that feel their complaints have gone on deaf ears out there in the rest of the world.

    There are 1000's of shitty reviews and videos with false or incomplete information. What happens after that? Nothing. No responses, no gathering of feedback, no clarification of false information. Nothing. Just terrible reviews hanging out there like a broken bone sticking out of flesh. That has to stop.

    Edit #435 to add: A social media marketing guru, at this point is JUST as important as your best, most irreplaceable developer. You need a rock star and it's not optional.
     
    Last edited: Jun 27, 2018
  16. Turok64

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    The easiest obvious problem of the game is it doesn't appeal to anyone under 30. Without that audience, you won't have growth.
    The under 30 audience is who most uses twitch (ability to grow viral), and has the ability to play the game the most. I.E. very late at night and very consistently. Since responsibilities are minimal.

    Question to answer is why doesn't the game appeal to the audience under 30? Well that is a more complicated question, some many obvious answers (I might be sounding off as being rude here, only because I am passionate about this game)

    1) Poor UI..game look so old.
    2)Poor graphics which could have been compensated with better art style (example Nintendo Games)
    3)Bad Performance...may be bound because this was built with Unity
    4)Archiac quest system, with so many bugs
    5)Weird hybrid single player/mmo
     
  17. 2112Starman

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    I think you started off well, I agree with the <30 thing especially in those times I have said the word "millennial" my posts get deleted by moderation.

    I will always say something about "performance" issues. I run 3 clients and OBS streaming to Twitch. 1 in 3/4 4K and the other 2 3/4 1080p and I still hit 60fps on most of them. Perf is mostly related to your rig and we have cycled these things around in every game I have ever played. Everyone always complains about it in any game and its always their rig. SOTA is brutal mostly because you are loading into a big zone with 200,000 placiblies sitting in it.
     
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  18. Cordelayne

    Cordelayne Bug Hunter

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    I couldn't agree more with these statements.
     
  19. Cora Cuz'avich

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    Did that feel a little like they were throwing some blame around to anyone else? (Note: I'm not saying they were, or that it is or is not legitimate. Just how it felt when I saw it.)
     
  20. Rook Strife

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    I think the main problem with questing in SOTA is that most players have a functioning brain.

    I think Port overlooked this.
     
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