Excited for final wipe but seems like a catch 22

Hehe I love the analogy, but let's put this to Gilligans Island terms. Adrian was a Mary Ann at best, and she sure was no Ginger
In real life I am a wood carver. When I do a piece, I start out by "blocking" out the piece. Some semblance of the piece is there but nothing more than the platform for me to build and refine. Once the blocking out is done, then comes time to add the details, and make it come to life. Most times it is easy to want that "detail" first. But if you have patience and let the blocking out process happen, you will get to see that "comes to life phase" of this game. It IS coming, just have a bit more patience.

 

Exactly! Mary Ann all day long and twice on Sunday. Ginger was overrated like WoW

 

I am glad you are enjoying your experience and are experiencing both soul and uniqueness in game!

Like you i have also traveled the lands of Azeroth, Eriador, and others to include the original UO. Sure you can see player influence as far as having POTS. I still think at this point there is SOUL lacking, what brings you back to game to keep playing in current state? For me its the people, and hope that this game turns into what the hype was building towards. (Yes i still do log in, though not much since this release)

I understand this is an ALPHA state, ive just never seen final wipes announces when the CORE was so far from being completed. (Unless they are going to roll out EP1 very similar to what game play is now with added story lines). MOST the time player wipes coincide with major game changes, so does this mean SOTA no longer has many major game changes coming? Especially to the core foundations of the game?

Some of the things i personally look for in a game in no particular order are storyline, art work, and challenge. None of these elements are in the game(except some nice artwork) IMO just look at the multiple posts of people soloing "bosses". Sure there is talk of a 30-40 hour story line coming into the game, but whats going to happen once that story line has been completed and is no longer new?(Obvious answer is future episodes.)

Barring any big changes to the game (which i hope are still coming) what is going to bring new people to the game? I know SOTA is a niche game(which is why i was so excited about it) and backed by many RG loyalists (I love UO, Ultima etc.), Here is what i see with the announcement of final wipes in my own personal opinion.

1) current game state is nothing incredible
2) SOTA has raised way more $$ than was initially needed in the kickstarter(See current state of game)
3)Final wipe announcement with the way things are is to keep people from abandoning ship(Consumer Confidence)
4)Future of the game may be limited to high level pledgers because they either see something in game that is eluding me(But will be noticeable before EP1), or not willing to admit the $$ invested are not going to have any kind of ROI ( to be fair this is not an investment in the traditional sense where people were expecting monetary returns, but id have to imagine they were banking on getting the game of their dreams, and having lots of fun playing.)

I know the dev team is working hard on the game to deliver, but again final wipe announcement , current state, not looking good at least for what i was hoping for in SOTA. Cant wait to be proved wrong, and get an incredible SOTA that meets and exceeds my expectations

 

I Like the OP joined around October 2015. However I instantly fell in love, and Ive been playing about 30-40 hours a week since then (yes im a freak).

But having come in when I did and being very involved, I see the forward progress and its going rather well.
I think about where the game was just a few months ago, and we have made a lot of steps forward.
I have played ALOT of indie games that are very ambitious. And Ill tell you this, This game has a lot of soul and character compaired to other games at this state.
The potential is massive, and its not hard to see that, so don't loose faith.
I compare this a lot to the dev of Mount and Blade, if anyone was around to play that before it released. It was horribly dismal until like right before they had a form of release. And it still went through a lot of work after that.
It was a niche game, but it sold pretty well, pretty similar to this, overworld map/smaller scenes/slow paced game play.


I think a lot of people are forgetting about Singleplayer Offline MODS! that alone has me not worried at all for the future.
One of the first MODS will im sure be a Server MOD so you can host your own offline world. Itll be like UO with Shards.
Then add all the crazy MOD content that people come up with and things will get interesting.

Now as long as PORT puts in writing that they have full use of MODs created for their game, then SPO Mods if awesome enuff, could make their way into the Offical MP servers.
And I feel like Port will def do this with the crowdsourcing mentality, much like Minecraft did with its community.
I was there before MC was in alpha, way back when there were only 3-4 kinds of blocks. So it was very interesting watching the community make the game grow.
As the guys from Bukkit came in (miss those guys) and created the MOD API for private servers to beable to be made.
Things took off after that.

 

Since i started this thread ive been looking for players prospective s on the game, and i appreaciate all the participation it has gotten thus far. I came across this one today https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/f...best-games-ive-ever-played.45885/#post-510859 and i think its fantastic that some individuals are having such a great time with current state, if any future SOTA players read through this thread please dont take my opinion as the state of the game, its just that my opinion. Check out linked thread an you will see other opinions, on a side note if anyone has similar opinions to the linked thread feel free to post here as some of you have!

 

I just want to paralyse/explosion combo the dickens out of noobs.

Can I do that please?

 

Not if they have 120 resist.

Lets try and stay on topic please. Thoughts on Final Wipe announcement, how its exciting to not have to rebuild characters and place your land etc, but concerning with current state of game and what the implications can be of the future.

 

I think the final wipe is none-debatable, but for what ever its worth my opinion is-

We are disregarding the advantage we will have over folks who think they are buying a newly launched game, they in effect get the booby prize for waiting.

 

If you buy house deeds in game now , the next wipe they are gone.

 

Thread is in reference to the Final Wipe 28 July 2016, game will be in Early Access. The official Launch will be sometime later, I believe date is still undetermined.

 

If you will look at my links, you will realise UO had the deepest story of all ultimas, but it was trashed because some malicious GMs and Seers decided to meta-play and make money selling stuff on e-bay.

Thats sad cause it was pure genius. It was about 10% implemented so really thats just a peek but enough to get a feel of it.

 

But real UO's skill cap is 100!

As to the other stuff, I am certainly excited to actually delve into Shroud after the final wipe. I have been holding off dedicating any real time to the game and just observing from the sidelines for some time.

I'm pleased with how PVP has developed and can't wait to really bite into it.

 

The game is fine to me. If I don't play more is mainly due to the upcoming wipes.

We can take every game element alone and find it wanting, but every game is more than the sum of it's parts. Specially this one.

 

All you naysayers might be singing a different tune when you see the quantity of content in the next release

 

Thank you Razimus for clarifying your position in more detail.

Lord Blacktorn's Revenge was expansion 4 and it had the Solen ant quests. This was the one right before Age of Shadows during year 4-5.

 

Careful because Real UO is EA's UO. That is 120.

 

I don't think you're alone in your thinking.

For me, like others I've been in dozens of alphas/betas for mmo's over the last decade or so. So with Sota I kinda knew what to expect, from the rough stages of pre-alpha to alpha and the polishing stages of betas. So I'm not disappointed with it's current state.

With a final wipe coming in July, and what is described to come between now and then, realistically, it is akin to alpha state at that point for me. Which is not yet a complete game. We have the bones of the game now and we wait for the fleshing out. I'm confident the final product will be a nice complete game I can enjoy. I'm not confident that the game will be fleshed out enough and feel like a full fledged game/mmo in July though. There's too much that feels incomplete and needing fleshing out and adjustments needed that I don't see being done by July (I'd love to be wrong on this)...Fishing, pvp, combat, gathering, new loot tables, crafting/recipes, combat, same copies of scenes (old adventure scenes and places like Braemar/Soltown), and other things to do in game to keep people engaged and playing long term still need work.

Since the systems are now in place, they can begin to start with fleshing things out now. That's just how the process goes. I expect by the end of the year we will have a fun and more complete game. I hope that by the time July comes and we place our lots I can be more engaged with the game and want to play it more. That's what I hope. What I think is more likely though with the game not being in a more complete state by then, is that I place my lots, play for a few weeks, then log in once in a while for new releases just as we do now. I'm patient so I can wait for the content and more fleshed out features though, I'm in no hurry for everything to be rushed.

Having said all that...I think I can understand the uniqueness statement you were talking about too. Most games I've played have had some sort of hook that gets me and reels me in at some point during it's development. Whether it's the PvP, the combat system, the gathering, crafting, housing, exploring, etc. With Ultima Online, Dark Age of Camelot, and Asheron's Call there were so many things in each of those games that hooked me and made me want to play and do it all. They felt like wonderful fantasy worlds that had so many fun things to do and I felt I could freely enjoy those games with no sense any of it being a chore, but a joy to play. For many, many years they kept me entertained.

 

I think the final wipe has been discussed quite enough. Its still a bit early to make your judgment, the state of the game "right now" is not the state the game will be in come July.

There really no difference in us starting in july or in dec or whenever. And to think about the episode(expansions) there will always be new people coming into the game and there will always be people further along than them, This is true for any game. So why hold on to it? No point.

Just like now, new people join all the time, and there a lot of people way ahead of them, and that doesn't scare off new people.
Theres only a very small crowd that will be turned off by not having a jump start so they can be top dog.

 

Fair enough, typically wipes are essential to overhaul central features and systems. Things that come to mind are the current combat systems, and magic systems for me(never been much of a crafter). If your happy with the current set up then i can see why you wouldnt be concerned at all. These wipes are usually essential to make the core game stronger and better. If you have any experience with coding you know this is true

 

That's partially true.

The developers described the wipes as being easier to make large changes. They didn't say they could no longer make or support large changes. In fact, they said they could, it would just involve more complex, more intense work on their part. So yes, final wipe means that the core systems are almost totally in. No, it doesn't mean the devs can never make big changes again. It just means it's less likely and it would probably require very good reasons to do it.