Purchasing votes for episode 2.

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by Bubonic, Jun 26, 2018.

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  1. Burzmali

    Burzmali Avatar

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    Just in case anyone has forgotten, the single worst feature of the game, spending XP to improve a skill by using the skill, was implemented after the devs had a discussion with the folks on dev+ and it was turned over to the rest of the playerbase as a fait accompli. That's why I don't trust folks with large bank rolls to direct the game's development, they suck at it.
     
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  2. Gorthyn

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    Dismissing anyone who offers criticism as "The Entitled" who don't get what the game is unfair and inaccurate on many levels.

    I don't think anyone here wants SOTA to become a genetic cookie cutter MMO, what they do want is it to become much better at what it set out to be than it is at present so it can not only survive (perhaps) but thrive.

    People are asking for Port to learn from previous mistakes to improve what we have, not to tear it all up.
     
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  3. 3devious

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    Shows how much you know. Lots of people in Dev+ didn't want this and a certain developer decided that backers wanted this. This same person also said that we like the combat system. Don't blame us when someone pees on your leg and tells you it's raining. People paying to vote are atleast as stupid as me if not more so because you're going to be dumping money into this pit and they're going to do what they want anyway and say this is what you wanted.
     
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  4. Steevodeevo

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    So... You think the worst feature is a system that using a skill regularly gains you experience and improves your application of that skill?

    Are there any RPG-MMO games that you like?
     
  5. Steevodeevo

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    Yes you are right @Gorthyn, I know that, but frankly the forums are so bloody toxic, whiney and negative right now, every positive thread gets buried into a 'shut the game down' rant, and you get frankly sick of it.

    Its not like the flamers listen to reason is it?

    And do I feel bad for labelling people entitled? Frankly no. These are the same people who happily coined the terms'naysayers', 'whales' , 'closed minded' etc whenever they didn't go along with their idea.

    Frankly if I was a Dev I would consider calling it a day if I read these forums. The value of them, which once was great is now, just mush, no solid thread of ideas, no broad agreement, no clear path. Just ego after ego after angry opinion.
     
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  6. CarlNZ

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    I think they would likely be better off steering clear of kickstarter this time. It would show the previous kickstarter by portalarium and if people went and looked at the comments on that one ... Well, they wouldn't be getting much funding from new people, let's just say that.
    Best to use another platform or method. One that would be open to outside the current playerbase. What that is, I don't know sadly.
     
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  7. Corv

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    www.fig.co ? :)
     
  8. Burzmali

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    There was radio silence in the announcement thread from the Dev+ regulars, with only a few folks commenting that it wasn't unanimous, compared to the outcry over later changes that were first visible only to dev+. Folks were real hyped about turning SotA into UO2 in those days.
     
  9. Ristra

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    I will remain a 2nd class citizen. The non voting class.

    No feature I would vote for will ever be on the store.
     
  10. Burzmali

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    Well, if they use fig.co at least they wouldn't have to worry about legal issues for not delivering on promises.
     
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  11. 3devious

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    I can only speak for myself. I've become so disinterested in the Dev+ forums that I only notice posts that appear when I click on the "What's New" link. I listen to Laz & Jack's show to get a good cross section of what folks are talking about in the forums. I don't know if everyone else is as inattentive as me (hope not.)
    I never played UO so I have no idea of what a UO2 would be like. I didn't play UO for 2 reasons: 1. I didn't have 10 a month. 2. I thought that MMORPGs were stupid. (That was in 1996.)
    Now that is really interesting. I hope Portalarium looks into a way of doing the crowd funding that would allow them to keep more of what they raise. Kickstarter campaigns get a lot of money taken right off the top!
    I don't think they really have to worry anyway. I dropped thousands on the Table of Ultimate Gaming and those guys are still so full of drek that their eyes should be brown. There really isn't any accoutibility anymore.
     
  12. MrBlight

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    Dev ++ was a lot more relevent before and just after persistance.
     
  13. Pounce

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    How do you play the game? I spend xp faster on skills than i gain them, training an skill is as easy as doolin the points out directly, the bottleneck is MAKING the exp.
     
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  14. Burzmali

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    The adventure side of XP creation and spending isn't the worst aspect of the system, though the lack of meaningful restrictions on which skills to gain and benefit per XP being spent far too high for the early levels of passives has led to it being a generic, unbalanced system. The game breaker is the crafting side. By implementing "use to level" for crafting, they eliminated any chance of there being a functional player based economy. That bulldozed one of the fundemental pillars of the game and it has been lopsided ever since.
     
  15. Pounce

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    I think more the "craft to make exp" idea.
    I mean other wise why should i make 100 tabletop catapults? or 3k wooden bindings....

    Spending exp in crafting is where you use learning boost buff....not ideal i know

    I would make it rather an gold sink, you pay tutors to raise skill

    Logical, you do not go and learn how to slay dragons by slaying dragons, first you learn how to swing that sword, then you slay the dragon, that is the proper way to do it....
     
  16. Vyrin

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    Ultimately I don't think stretch goals are about listening to player input. I just think it's a fundraising gimmick.

    I think SotA has been harmed by too much input. Port offered incentives like Dev+ not expecting the huge inlfux of attention-starved players who were willing to pay for it. ALL the incentives realated to player input were backed-off. Remember "design an NPC" and design sessions for POT's and even things like custom Duke heads? They've always overpromised input, been caught off guard by the response, and then struggled to keep up with it. And then silly things happen like answering all the questions every telethon. Time can be spent much better than dealing with every request for new shinies.

    If you ask me, Episode 2 needs to start with a clear and rock-solid vision from RG the will not change over the course of development. Present something stable and let people buy in to the overall vision or not. Based on the experience with Episode 1, I have no confidence that anything promised with Episode 2 will be what Episode 2 actually turns out to be. They need to rebuild that trust and the original Ultima magic.

    What Port should do is take a day and come up with a community management strategy. Decide when and how they are going to accept community input. Make it primarily through an automated testing and feedback system after actually playing the game. End the ability to directly PM a dev. Stop offering random people the chance to interact with the devs in random ways generating all the high-schoolish drama. There's not even a community manager anymore!

    Come up with a realistic vision and stick to it this time. Community input is secondary. Just my 2 cents.
     
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  17. Rufus D`Asperdi

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    This right here is what people who've been watching this game develop over the course of the last 5 years continue to not understand about the game development process...
    This requirement has never been met by any game in the 40 year history of computer games... It's just not how it works.
    If you ask @Lord British if Akalabeth (The game that had a development team of One) in its final version matched the vision he set out with on the project, I will bet you $500.00 US that he'll say "No."
     
    Last edited: Jun 28, 2018
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  18. Burzmali

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    There are many ways to implement a functional system, both tested and novel, the one they choose was known to have all the flaws we are seeing now back when LB and DS tried it in UO (http://www.mine-control.com/zack/uoecon/uoecon.html)
    Logically, killing sheep for a few hours with a bow shouldn't make you a grand master of archery just because you killed a few thousand electric monkeys with a sword last week, but reality makes for poor gameplay sometimes. I think that "use to level" was doable for combat skill, Port just failed to implement the system successfully, implementing it for crafting was a failure from the start as it is built on a flawed foundation.
     
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  19. Vyrin

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    And I will be generous in responding to you by saying that your understanding of vision may be different. And your implication - that anything can change over the course of a project - is a recipe for chaos that doesn't survive the practical reality of software development. If a company had unlimited budget and time, maybe. But at some point you have to have a stake in the ground about what you're going to achieve. The problem is you need both a vision and a flexibility within that vision. Flexibility is implied in my definition of vision, so don't emphasize one side of the equation such that you jettison something that is universally acknowledged as part of development.

    Consider an simple example - which many are confused about - what type of game is this? Online/offline, selective multiplayer, MMORPG, sandox MMO, or something unique unto itself. If you say it's X, be able to set some guideposts in the ground about what X means. Here's one part of what Shroud's vision was: it will have an offline mode. And despite the fact that the offline mode is terribly weak as an offline game, they made sure it was included. They stuck to that vision. But that's just one part of something that was much larger. Later changes to vision (MMORPG, sandbox MMO and what these even mean) confused things quite a bit and upset many people.

    Another example, if your vision is "Our primary objectives are to tell a story even more compelling than Ultimas IV-VII...", you make priorities during development to ensure that is the case. You compare/contrast to the standard, and if you are not there, you work at it until you get there. If you're saying an objective in a vision statement like this can change, you're really not saying anything good about the project.

    I appreciate the desire to be understanding of a software team as changes and issues come up along the way. That I think is the basis of your post. But as hard and confining as it is sometimes, it's actually more beneficial to hold a team to a vision and deliver to customers what you promised with the clear communication of how things had to change to achieve the vision in different ways as the project went forward.

    TL;DR. A good definition of vision gives you what you are aiming to accomplish with being confining in terms of the issues that creep up along the way.

    Oh and btw - I don't think the comparison to Akalabeth is really pertinent. That wasn't a project done after millions of dollars of backer funding, with employees, with almost 40 years of game development and general software development advances. And remember your understanding of vision is not mine apparently. I'm sure he did achieve his vision as I would understand it.
     
    Last edited: Jun 28, 2018
  20. Bubonic

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    well said
     
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