“About half our player base is more interested in playing through the story than playing online!”

the only person who brought up dollar value is you. Also, note that I didnt include your quote in my message.

 

Yes, true.

...because implicitly the OP is suggesting there is an equal demand for single player, which is one of his biggest drums to bang. My rebuke is that even if the data (which we can't see) suggests that, I was wagering that SotA has received a greater amount of funding from the MMO side and hence (like it or not) the MMO side has contributed more to the development of the game.

For extra information, many on the MMO side (myself included) would like to see a strong single player game too but we don't create a new thread every few days to remind the community about it. Compare and contrast.

 

From Kickstarter:

"
What IS Shroud of the Avatar?

Shroud of the Avatar is the “spiritual successor” to Richard’s previous work in the FRP genre. Our primary objectives are to tell a story even more compelling than Ultimas IV-VII, create a virtual world more interactive than Ultima VII, develop deep rich multi-player capabilities beyond combat akin to Ultima Online, and offer a bold new approach to integrate them with “Selective Multi-Player”.

• Shroud of the Avatar is infused with rich storylines, deeply integrated into game play, developed by Best Selling Author Tracy Hickman and RPG legend Richard Garriott.
• Players will adventure in an interactive world where their choices have consequences, ethical paradoxes give them pause, and they play a vital part in weaving their own story into the immersive world and lore surrounding them.
• Shroud of the Avatar is a Selective Multiplayer game, allowing players to choose how they want to play! Whether in Single-Player Offline mode or any of three online modes, the main quest line will provide greater than 40 hours of focused, story driven content.
• Shroud of the Avatar can be played as an offline DRM free solo experience or online, where our servers will enable player to player transactions, group finding, patching, streaming of dynamic content, and exploit prevention.
• Built using the Unity Game Engine, Shroud of the Avatar will support Win/Mac/Linux for official launch.
• Players can specialize in a wide range of combat and non-combat skills, provided by a robust, classless skill system, and full-featured crafting and housing mechanics. Play the way you want to play, molding your character into the hero, anti-hero, or artisan you want to be!
• Shroud of the Avatar: Forsaken Virtue is the first of a 5 game series of full-length, stand-alone games (each using the same game system), referred to as Episodes 1 through 5. Estimated availability of Episode 1, Forsaken Virtues, is October 2014, with Episodes 2 through 5 estimated for subsequent yearly releases.
• Shroud of the Avatar is a “buy-to-play” game that, once purchased, does not require a subscription to play!

But honestly, i cant understand why we have again and again the same stupid discussion.
I want the game as described above and i think we are on the right track..

 

Honestly though, how I interpret this same data is that in fact they were wrong. Based on the evidence presented (first descriptions, videos, etc...all geared towards single, not multiplayer), the statement should read:

"I think they designed the game with single player in mind and it showed that they were wrong when only half the player base is in for the story and the SP aspect."

Glass half full/half empty and all that.

 

And what is the first thing mentioned in the list?

Our primary objectives are to tell a story even more compelling than Ultimas IV-VII
and
Shroud of the Avatar is infused with rich storylines, deeply integrated into game play, developed by Best Selling Author Tracy Hickman and RPG legend Richard Garriott.

Goes in line with Richard saying that they try to create a story-driven single-player RPG that can also be played online in different modes.

Even if they would be wrong - which I don't think - changing the whole concept of a game after half the player base payed for it would not be very wise. So they also have to deliver on the SP front.

 

I think the game was planned from the perspective that single player and multiplayer are good compliments.

If you watch the first Kickstarter talk between RG and DarkStarr, they discuss that the origin of Ultima Online was the idea that while playing the Ultima games they always thought "wouldn't it be fun to play them with my friends?" -- and that they were trying to go back to that inspiration with SotA. That's the whole idea behind "Friends Play Online" and Selective Multiplayer, IMO. Multiplayer is just envisioned as an expanded version of friends play. At the core of all of that is Single Player, which is the game that you would theoretically "like to play with your friends."

It also brings computer role-playing back to the basic table-top RPG experience, which is all about playing a single campaign or set of campaigns, designed and narrated by a DM, with your friends.

 

And you would be correct. The majority of the funding is coming from those backers that have player housing. However, that only represents less than 10% of the paid backers. But all this is besides the point, as we don't know the intent of the true majority.

Since story and the offline mode have been stated to be held back on purpose, it's sort of to be expected. Since the devs aren't going to talk about it, the only thing left for offline players to do is to continually raise awareness -- not just so the devs know what they're expecting -- but so New Britannians know there's an entire other game here besides the sandbox.

I really wish the devs would release a pseudo-offline version sooner rather than later. That is, it plays just like the single player offline mode (with its offline-specific balancing, no POTs or player properties, etc), except it still sends telemetry back for their analysis. This serves two purposes: we get to test offline mode, and they still get the data they need. As a bonus, they'd know how many backers are playing in that mode vs SPO/FPO/OPO.

 

Yeah, well UO had zero single player experience questing. It was the most sandboxy-sandbox RPG I've ever played. Excepting some other betas of other games unfinished. From the extremely detailed questing of Ultima VI, VII, VIII to UO with zero quests, it was a stark contrast that probably threw off a lot of single player Ultima fans.

So 50/50 even in theory, would be a good thing. I wish it was 50/50, but we will see the final product. Hopefully it will be Ultima VII-quest-wise + multiplayer. Because UO sure wasn't that. My bro, being a big single player Ultima fan never subscribed to UO, not even for 1 month. He played on my account enough to make a GM blacksmith then he got bored. So it has the potential to make both sides happy. When the single player fans finish the single player game, I bet many will check out the online game. And I bet some will not, but I bet, the vast majority will at least check it out, there's no monthly fee, they already paid for it. Might as well check it out.

 

Yea, I think they originally planned to get into generated quest type of stuff in UO, like from their ecology sim, where some chain of events would lead to a dragon attacking the town and so on.

I think if there's a good player made quest system, there'll be plenty of things for fans of playing out stories to get into. Also, if the combat is actually good, and not grindy like in UO, and there's some adventuring, I think it can play like some of the earlier Ultimas, so single player fans could play for the adventure and not necessarily the story.

 

Indeed, although I didn't want to assume that all house backers were MMOers even if I suspect that is true of most.

I could also accept this if the OPs topics were not so hostile. The bullying of the devs into changing the map was astounding. The topics seem less "hey guys single player is great too" and more (IMO!) "listen up morons you are all wrong". The same message on repeat every couple of days is nauseating; and isn't like it is contained to one sub-forum....

 

1. I don't think that there is a subforum for the single player part.

2. I thought that with hundreds of PvP-threads talking about the same things over and over that it was common pratice here on the boards to do this

3. I think it is important to remind anyone what SotA is and what it is meant to be and obviously many - especially new players - have a totally false picture of this game and think that this is UO 2. And we don't want them to be disappointed in the end, do we?

 

As someone whos primary development responsibility is essentially what's being discussed (lore, dialogue, story, immersion), I will say that the tone on the subject in threads such as these does not encourage me to speak up when these discussions come up. I understand that topics such as these (and game development in general) raises passions but at the same time please understand game development is not zero-sum - work in one area does not mean work does not happen/will not happen elsewhere.

As for which forums are most appropriate, I tend to try to watch the Quests and Lore/Avatars and NPC subforums pretty closely.

 

Well just my 2c but I backed higher than I can afford having never enjoyed any MMO. Single-player Ultimas were what brought me here, and I own multiple properties for what its worth. I probably will play part of my time online since I've met some lovely people in this community. I also rarely venture onto the forum outside of bug reports and occasional screenshots, as someone on page 1 commented, because arguing on forums isn't my thing. Just a personal story I wanted to share.

 

That makes 2 of us!

 

Thirded. I have been surprised to enjoy many of the MMO aspects, but they're not what got me to pledge.

 

Interessting would be to know which pledges thos people have ;-)

 

Should those people who invest more money in the game have more to say or be more important than those who do not spend as much money?
If so then the whole system is wrong because what incentive do single player fans have to spend more money on the game? Why should someone who wants to play offline and experience the story buy a house or a castle?

If people would be treated differently according to the amount of money they pledge then single player fans would be treated poor from the get go because they do not have any opportunity to spend more money on the game. This would shift the focus of power in favour of the MMO-fans without giving offline-single-player-fans any chance to compete. This would be very unfair, don't you agree?

 

I just want to kill peasants and eat their flesh.

 

*High Five*

 

Actually, that's a good idea. It would probably raise better awareness of the topics too.

I tend not to browse the PVP forums for that reason. I do get annoyed when PVP spills over into the other forums as it used to in the early days. I can appreciate that many topics overlap with each other, but in some cases the spillage into other forums is not always respectful. Some from the PVP community have done this (obviously not all).

I agree in principle. My complaint would be on tone and containment. I can acknowledge that more has been put on the MMO aspects, so perhaps a good direction is to have a focused sub-forum for topics specifically to discuss the offline modes.