Single Player Offline: Unique Features

I'm pleased to hear about the on-going commitment to the single player version of the game.

I started out backing SOTA as a single player game (having loved the early Ultima's - 3,4,5,6&7) but I've become converted to a 'multi-player' person from my time playing the SOTA alpha's.

I still believe that a strong focus on single player features enhances the game for everyone - more sales, more funds to add content in future releases etc! There's a big market of people out there who love single player RPGs - look at the success of Divinity Original Sin, SKyrim etc etc.

 

I'm happy that we're getting some answers in the single-player front.

 

Ok, some real feedback/questions on the currently revealed unique features:

Save Games:
- Will the limit on number of save games be driven by disk space or some other factor?
- It would be nice if the save game system supported a branching type system. I'm really surprised that no other RPG has done this (that I'm aware of) despite the fact that it would benefit the most from such a system. This feature would really differentiate SotA from the masses!
- If there's going to be multiple characters for the offline game, can you confirm that they would not share any data between them unlike our online account and its multiple characters sharing a single virtue / karma score.
- Can you save the game at any point -- even mid-battle -- and the game would restore exactly at that point? If not, how will it work differently?
- Very early in the KS campaign, there was talk about potentially exporting your (or your friend's) online character and importing that as a companion (note: little "c") in your Party that you can fully control/manage in the offline game. Is that still on the table or a in-your-dreams wish list?
- If you die, will the game end and you need to re-load or will there be a "ghost world" like there is now?

Companions: (trying to ask purely mechanics questions here but forgive me if I tread on to any that might spoil the story)
- Will multiple Companions travel with you simultaneously?
- Will the Companions offer any individualized / personal commentary on the choices you make with an NPC?
- Will the Companions banter between each other if there are more than one that travel with you?
- Can you manage your Companion's inventory?
- Can you equip your Companions? This may be necessary in places where they require swamp boots or if you want them to switch between melee vs ranged vs magic?
- Will the Companions complain about food and you have to feed them? (Seriously though, can you feed them to give them buffs)
- Can you dismiss / invite a Companion at will or is their journey with you "locked" as part of a story?
- Similarly, if you can only have one Companion at a time, can you go dismiss your current and invite another if they're available?
- How much control will we have over the Companion beyond simple pet commands to stay/defend/attack/etc? That is, can we have them sit, lie down, perform emotes, etc? Example: you want to sit down at a tavern to enjoy an ale with your Companion and even if it's purely for RP, it would be strange to have them just stand there.
- Can you have a mix of Companions and companions in your Party? Note the little "c" to refer to generic party members, be they pets, hirelings, etc. If so, what's the max Party size?

Spawn Rules
- If spawn rates are going to be on a very slow timer, how will you manage this in relation to crafting that might require a large number of hides or corpse wax, for example?
- There wasn't any mention of resource spawn rules so how will that be affected? Say you've just "cleared" a scene and harvested all of its resources, what are the respawn rules for resources if you re-enter that scene again?
- If there are repeatable quests/jobs, how will they be affected by the spawn rates (MOBs and resources)?

Content
- Will there be any content that won't be available in offline? For example, PvP Arenas, dynamic contested resource zones, PvP contraband quests, etc.
- Will players be able to claim their pledge rewards in offline? If so, can you claim them every time a new offline character is created?
- How will purely online-capable content be ported offline or will they simply be non-functional or unavailable? Examples: Fyndoro's Tablet of Finding, Discourse Orb, Aetheric Amplifier, etc.
- Will there still be any decay or upkeep costs to property?
- Will you have access to all emotes?
- Will you have access to all founder / benefactor items?

...more to come later

 

Well, I don't have as many questions as smack, but I am curious at some of the answers -- particularly if it will be possible to give companions equipment and have that equipment persist. I liked the management previously of characters and had hoped it'd make a return.

Also, RE:

How will the player lots work? I assume they will be present but left empty in and around the towns. Will the walls be removed around each of them? I think without walls it might change the look from seeing a number of pens/lots to that of a large field; could give the illusion of more places in which to position a house, etc.

 

This all seems very cool.. for the first time i see myself playing both online and offline. Will we have a companion that trades in some form of poultry?

 

Yea verily... let the duck (or other water-fowl) trading commenceth!

 

Currently in Owlshead Player Lots have a house in them before they are claimed. Once the lot is claimed the house disappears and you can place a house of your own. This is what (I believe) DarkStarr meant when he said buildings were preplaced.

 

Some more questions

1. will be possible to train the companions ourselves and manage their gear and inventory.
2. how many companions we will be able to travel with at a time

 

Wow. That is a lot to answer. Obviously we don't yet have answers we are comfortable providing just yet for most of these but I will try to answer as many of these as I can.

1. How will Control Points function in single player offline? Will there be NPCs to assist taking down the MOBs and keep control for safe passage?

Good point. We don't yet have a concrete design for this. Perhaps we can provide a squad of hirelings at the scene entrance who would assault the CP?

1. How will Shardfalls function in single player offline? Will MOBs replace Players to function as the risk?

Mobs

1. How will the economy function if there are no other players to fuel it? Will the NPC vendors and MOBs simply be populated with random gear? Will there be a maker's mark on that random gear to show which NPC crafted it?

One idea we want to try is to initially seed the game with items from the online game final beta state.

1. Will there still be a regional economy in offline mode?

Yes

1. Will the adventure zones be scaled or will those disappear?

They are already tuned to support solo play for the most part

1. Will PvP quests still function and be replaced by NPCs hunting you down? For example: contraband quest.

Probably not for Ep 1

1. Can I kill any NPC in offline mode? If not, what kinds of NPCs cannot be killed?

Probably not for Ep 1

1. Will PvP arenas be absent or will they still function but be replaced by leveled NPCs you can duel/fight?

Cool idea to replace with NPCs to make it similar to Challenge Dungeon. Wish list for Ep 1 but not on current schedule

1. Will we be able to drop items anywhere permanently or will there still be decay?

There would be performance implications if there was no decay at all but we could absolutely slow down this decay quite a bit

1. Will we be able to take, move or place items in NPC buildings?

To some extent, as much as we have time to do by Ep 1 launch

1. Will the lot decoration limits be the same or will those be increased?

We might be able to increase them slightly

1. Will the decoration rules be more flexible so we can create crazy structures again?

Interesting suggestion. We will consider it

1. Will collisions be enabled for NPCs, MOBs, animals, etc?

That would be awesome, we will consider it.

1. Will the same limits on bank slots be in place? For example, it was said that we can only increase our bank slots up to a certain limit with in-game gold, and then we'd have to purchase more with real cash. How will that work for the offline game?

We are heavily considering removing in game bank slot limits and allowing unlimited upgrades with in game gold (albeit ever increasing cost)

1. Will dead MOBs still decay or will they stay in place, with whatever items they had on them that the player didn't loot?

There would be performance implications if there was no decay at all but we could absolutely slow down this decay quite a bit

 

A little off topic, but single player related. You mentioned mobs will be in a shardfall while playing offline, what about single player online? Couldn't you put those same mobs in place and take away the rare pvp resources?

 

Thanks for answering all of those! It's great to see you're already thinking about solo play for quite a few systems and that naturally translates well for the pure offline game. I would like to revisit the decay rates for dropped items or dead bodies once all performance tuning is complete but I think even a longer decay would suffice for now.

And now I'm sure you're now staring at the second long list of questions in my other post

 

Save Games:
- Will the limit on number of save games be driven by disk space or some other factor?
Probably disk space but not finalized yet

- It would be nice if the save game system supported a branching type system. I'm really surprised that no other RPG has done this (that I'm aware of) despite the fact that it would benefit the most from such a system. This feature would really differentiate SotA from the masses!
Cool idea but probably not in scope for Ep 1. Great Ep 2 candidate

- If there's going to be multiple characters for the offline game, can you confirm that they would not share any data between them unlike our online account and its multiple characters sharing a single virtue / karma score.
We can consider this

- Can you save the game at any point -- even mid-battle -- and the game would restore exactly at that point? If not, how will it work differently?
Save games will likely not

- Very early in the KS campaign, there was talk about potentially exporting your (or your friend's) online character and importing that as a companion (note: little "c") in your Party that you can fully control/manage in the offline game. Is that still on the table or a in-your-dreams wish list?
We still love this idea and still on our wishlist but currently

- If you die, will the game end and you need to re-load or will there be a "ghost world" like there is now?
Likely ghost mode

Companions: (trying to ask purely mechanics questions here but forgive me if I tread on to any that might spoil the story)
- Will multiple Companions travel with you simultaneously?
Ideally yes
- Will the Companions offer any individualized / personal commentary on the choices you make with an NPC?
Perhaps
- Will the Companions banter between each other if there are more than one that travel with you?
Hopefully
- Can you manage your Companion's inventory?
Wishlist for Ep 1
- Can you equip your Companions? This may be necessary in places where they require swamp boots or if you want them to switch between melee vs ranged vs magic?
Wishlist for Ep 1
- Will the Companions complain about food and you have to feed them? (Seriously though, can you feed them to give them buffs)
Cool idea, wishlist for Ep 1
- Can you dismiss / invite a Companion at will or is their journey with you "locked" as part of a story?
Undefined at this time
- Similarly, if you can only have one Companion at a time, can you go dismiss your current and invite another if they're available?
Undefined at this time
- How much control will we have over the Companion beyond simple pet commands to stay/defend/attack/etc? That is, can we have them sit, lie down, perform emotes, etc? Example: you want to sit down at a tavern to enjoy an ale with your Companion and even if it's purely for RP, it would be strange to have them just stand there.
Anything beyond the pet commands is wishlist for Ep 1
- Can you have a mix of Companions and companions in your Party? Note the little "c" to refer to generic party members, be they pets, hirelings, etc. If so, what's the max Party size?
Yes

Spawn Rules
- If spawn rates are going to be on a very slow timer, how will you manage this in relation to crafting that might require a large number of hides or corpse wax, for example?
We will balance this but we anticipate the single player demand for these resources will be significantly smaller than multiplayer
- There wasn't any mention of resource spawn rules so how will that be affected? Say you've just "cleared" a scene and harvested all of its resources, what are the respawn rules for resources if you re-enter that scene again?
Same rules as creature spawns
- If there are repeatable quests/jobs, how will they be affected by the spawn rates (MOBs and resources)?
Will deactivate if they are related to a "cleared" area

Content
- Will there be any content that won't be available in offline? For example, PvP Arenas, dynamic contested resource zones, PvP contraband quests, etc.
Yes there will be some content not available in offline mode. We don't yet have a real list
- Will players be able to claim their pledge rewards in offline? If so, can you claim them every time a new offline character is created?
Yes you will be able to claim rewards in offline
- How will purely online-capable content be ported offline or will they simply be non-functional or unavailable? Examples: Fyndoro's Tablet of Finding, Discourse Orb, Aetheric Amplifier, etc.
Undefined at this time
- Will there still be any decay or upkeep costs to property?
Yes
- Will you have access to all emotes?
If they are part of your pledge yes
- Will you have access to all founder / benefactor items?
If they are part of your pledge yes

 

NPC Arena. Never mind just offline mode this would be a kewl idea for multiplayer, single player and friends online modes as well.

 

This is excellent! Single player will be just like in the previous Ultimas with what you have proposed.

Thank you Darkstarr!

 

I believe that's the idea.

 

Thanks for getting through all those, Starr! I think I've gone past my quota on asking questions here

 

Thanks for typing them all out and getting most of my questions answered.

 

I don't care one bit about single player offline mode, but just wanted to second a big thanks for answering all those questions. It's always appreciated.

 

DarkStarr are you guys still thinking about porting characters from Online to Offline (of course not Offline to Online though)?

 

I am very happy about this thread and it seems all of my questions (asked a long time ago) were answered now.


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