World Maps: The Minimum Expectations of 21st Century RPGS

You do realize that would be doubling the workload on something they weren't planning to have people use more than 10% of the time? Whether they miscalculated how much people would be using the OM is irrelevant, something like that would hit the CFO and the budget hard. If you're serious about wanting a system like that then what feature(s) would you be willing to give up for them to dedicate more time to this map issue? And remember, time=money as well.....

 

They already have those two systems if I understood correctly. A few days before R4 they still had the 3D overworld view and created the paper map in two days. So they should have both versions in a playable state - but unpolished.

And if you go with money - then why not stick with the 3D overworld view they are working on for a year? Why now invest money in a totally new system?

And if I had to choose I would accept cuts to the housing system, as I won't be using it anyway

And by the way I don't understand this "only 10% of the time in overworld view" anyway. If I think back to Ultima 4 or 5 I was spending much more time than 10% wandering around in the overland view. And I thought that the old Ultimas were the source of inspiration for the SotA overland view...

 

Shame they never bothered to tell us that.
In fact, in the current map I can't see owners using the map for more than 1% of the time, I mean how could you? There isn't the functionality for doing anything on the new map other than clicking the mouse twice.

You are getting caught up in terminology, we must not let that draw us away from the central issue; that the developers have arbitrarily decided to make the shocking decision to replace a wonderful, fully detailed and interactive 3D world map as promoted for marketing purposes by Richard Garriot for a minimalist paper map that is frankly risible.

 

None of the assets that were involved in the prototype were created by the Portalarium team by all accounts, so there's an issue of cost involved with licensing said pieces. Believe me, costs SKYROCKET when you get into licensing art assets on this kind of scale. So you're talking time/money to reproduce said assets.
Then there's the issue of how long they've worked on the OM overall. In my honest opinion I don't think they'd actually touched the OM since the prototype until just before this last release. Otherwise some of the features they want to add would have been in place in some form. In the prototype they had tilt/zoom/rotate as well as fog of war on the iterations of the OM that they showed, so it should have only come down to swapping out art assets. Unless they hard-baked everything we saw in the demo, which would mean that they didn't even have the OM system to begin with... But that's another topic.
You can't cut money from the housing budget, it's been their major funding source from the beginning, so the time/money would have to come from somewhere else. I mean come on, it's the system that we've tested since R1.
I think we agree on their estimation of 10% being off, but while I don't think it's too far off, by everything you've said you feel it's considerably higher than that. I think that they expect players to be more interested in exploring the zone's themselves, looking for the hidden cave entrances, and trap doors rather than staring at the OM, as those things won't show on the OM. See my comment about coming across the spider and the mountainous region from the prototype as an example. Do you plan on being in the OM that much more when you can be interacting with other players/NPC in a way never possible before in any of the Ultimas (not counting UO as you don't seem to be drawing inspiration from it, so I don't know if you ever played it).
Hmmm, inspiration doesn't translate to duplication...

 

Then perhaps they need to go to the community, fess up that the World Map is going to be nothing like how RG described it nor similar to the prototype, apologize and ask for further funding to realize what they had promised the investors originally.
I have already invested what would be considered a large sum for a video game; however I might be persuaded to find more cash rather than abide the '10% travel system'.

 

@Aegis159

The point is, it doesn't matter how long you stay in the overhead map, I agree with DNA about this, you cant show what it was going to be, collect funding for the game with said map in 3 month video then change it for something that is so far removed from the original its not even funny. They say they took inspiration from the Game of Thrones map, the only inspiration I see is that the map is antique looking, no 3d or zoom in to be seen, you cant even move our new inspired overhead map to see where you are going to, hell even the original overhead map from the 3 month video had more in common with the Game of Thrones than this map does, at least that had 3d elements to it. Do you really accept this map as acceptable compared to what was originally shown Aegis159? If they wasn't going to use it ultimately they should have never shown it in any video.

 

Nor have Richard Garriot promote the prototype or compare it to 'Civ 5', what a joke!
I do so hope Shroud of the Avatar isn't going to turn out similar to the Realms of Arkania Blade of Destiny remake

 

good point DNA

 

The OM is a main feature of the game so why has so little time and money been put into making it worthwhile, everyone will be using the OM map and it should be one of the great features of the game if we are to enjoy an open world full of exploration.
The main item draining all the funding and designer time is the overhyped housing that will be available to about 2% of players. Compared with UO's housing system it's not in the same league it's just a free movement instanced house decoration setup, not a free forming element of the game.

 

It was just "terminology"? There's an artist sitting at Portalarium, right now, whose work you have referred to as, "a child's drawings". Charming! Putting that aside, however, I'm not seeing the issue here. You seem to be under the impression that the developers of this game aren't allowed to make design decisions. That, to me, is just bizarre. Do you think SotA should be "design by forum posts" instead? Further, not everyone agrees the paper map is bad in the first place!

PLUS, folk seem to be forgetting that the paper map -- like the game itself -- is nowhere near a finished product, so it's extraordinarily unfair to judge it at this time. Again, I'm not seeing an actual issue here at all.

 

See here, it seems that we are not the only ones shocked that the OM has had so little effort put into it while Housing has had enormous amounts. If I were the devs I'd start backing off housing now in favour of a proper map, exploration detail and combat.

 

One of the issues is that they advertised a game during the Kickstarter campaign and got their money for this game. Now they change an important aspect of the game - and this without us knowing. I gave them money because of what was shown during the Kickstarter campaign. I doubt that I would have pledged that high if they had shown the paper map instead of the living 3D world view.
That is cleary an issue with Kickstarter financing. If you show something and get money before release then it should better stay the way it was shown - with improved graphics instead of something completely different.
And it is even worse changing it without telling those who gave them money.

We were expecting something different, we were shown something different. During a "normal" development of a game - without Kickstarter - this would not have been such an issue, because if you don't like something they have changed during development then you are free to not buy the product. But we already have bought it - because of what was shown during Kickstarter and what we expected it to be. It is neither fair nor right changing such important elements of the game - especially without telling us.

And traveling and exploring the world in a overland view is a very important aspect of the game. SotA was advertised as the spiritual successor to the Ultima games and exploration has always been an important element in those games. And for me, shoving around a flag on a paper map is not exploring a world. The overland view they showed during the Kickstarter campaign would have had an exploration aspect to it as it used the same graphical style as the third person view of the scenes and as it looked alive and "realistic".

 

Yet this much ballyhooed original map wasn't 1:1 or anything remarkably useful - a few buildings marked a town, some trees marked a forest, etc. Its not like one could plan anything above and beyond what they can now plan via the paper map, instead. So, again, I'm not seeing the big issue.

As for things changing from concept to final game, that is the nature of any crowd funded project. Yes, you might fund based on what you think it will be like whether that's because you were shown something, or read something, or imagined something. But at the end of the day, it can all change.

 

While I do agree with you that any kind of overhead map is immersion breaking to a certain extent. I do not agree that how the overhead map looks doesn't effect just how immersion breaking it is. A overhead map that is in the same style *basically just a zoomed out version of the real game* does not break my "immersion" as much a overhead map that is completely different then the regular gameworld. In the original 3d zoomed out version we were shown I can still feel like I am actually exploring the world and experiencing it. With the new map its just click on a spot and wait for my character to move to it. Its not much better then just having a written list of places to go.

 

Yeah I don't see the Game of Thrones inspiration in this new map either! Its not even close. Though as I understand it they are going to add some popup book style paper 3d things to it later on. But even then I think it would be more accurate to compare the map to a childrens popup book and not the Game of Thrones intro.

 

Whereas I would say, if I'm playing an interactive story, what better fantasy representation to pull out to than a storybook like image? To me, it fits perfectly. Meanwhile, like I was saying to the chap above, a map where a few buildings are supposed to be a village, and a few trees are meant to be a forest, doesn't look right. In fact, it looks 'less right' when the game tries to represent it in that style than if the game goes in the opposite direction, showing the map in a truly fantastical, non realistic way, like the paper map.

 

Yes it feels like housing has gotten so much time and money put into it that everything else in this game has suffered for it. I understand to a certain extent the strong focus on housing. I mean the big draw of the higher level pledges is the housing. But it just feels like much/most of the development has gone into housing leaving not much for everything else.

 

I am not sure how it could look less right if it actually looks somewhat close to the actual game versus something that looks nothing like it.

 

Yes we can get it can all change but considering "we" are responsible for much of the funding of this game shouldn't we have been informed when they decided to make this change? I mean they probably knew they were going to change the map system for quite sometime now. I mean I doubt a week before R4 they just suddenly decided oh hey lets change the map system! While it is possible the new design wasn't "finalized" until very recently chances are they have been discussing the new map design and how to do it for quite some time now. Quite possibly for months. Why not inform us that changes were going to be made? I mean even in the release notes I am pretty sure not a word was said about the map being different then what was advertised originally. Personally I feel rather mislead I was shown and told one thing and part of the reason I pledged at all is because of what I was shown then suddenly without any warning they totally change what I was told I would be getting.

 

I just got an update by mail... all it seems to talk about is some coconut making the noise of a horse because we don't have time to have mounts for episode 1...

I understand this is a joke, its a nice thing to have humor especially that I understand how hard the programming job is and how stressing it can be.

But first answer your backer's most immediate concern, then make jokes.

I also feel kind of misled, I was expecting more when we had only 1 million $ in pledges, now we're coming up to 4 millions and thats all the attention we get ?

Are you just going to reward your early backers with a cloak and a special shield ? Cause yes I'm beginning to feel ackward too...