Video Game Review "Shroud of the Avatar"

Im a big fan of earning stuff. Risk vrs Reward and abolish the ransom system imop.

 

Can SotA be called a game yet? Put a card board box down in a room and my kids would make a game of it. The box was not the game though. This is more like a bicycle with no peddles and no seat. Painful for some fun for others. Still waiting on parts.

 

Not sure I understand.. in UO, crafting was just clicking a button on a menu. That was pretty boring to me.

 

Well when tied into 12 diffrent metals tied into the use based skill gains, gm and runic bonuses, makers mark that actually ment something. Then toss in posioning of the weapons and clients that bought from you on a regular basis id sell 10 swords to the same client.

Those things I call fun. As far as the gui yea it was the late 90s.

Ive played 20+ mmos and ive found none even close to the same enjoyment factor as what I expierenced in uo.

 

Sounds great !!

 

Oh ok but those are not directly what you'd call the crafting system... I'm not talking about the gui; I think crafting requires some process to it to be fun, and not just clicking on a menu, or clicking in a skill book, in the case of SotA. I am hoping that the recipes and everything else gets better in SotA, too.

 

Yea i see, i think of it as a whole. Uo with sota gui would make me pretty happy

 

I can say that I have played all those games you listed. I even built by myself one of the largest NeverWinter Night persistent worlds in the game (one of the first hall of fame) that served 200K people. I was one of the top PVP'ers in Wow, Dark Age of Camelot, GW2 and UO (etc).

I have played SOTA non-stop for 5 months and I love all of it how it is right now. I haven't even gotten into PvP yet (will probably have to wait until persistence when more are on).

You bring up some valid points... but they are trumped by the fact that this game is still in beta for more then half a year... Did you play UO in beta... holy heck... it was a disaster... Did you Beta EQ? Holy heck, it was a disaster, did you beta WoW, holy heck it was a disaster.

You should probably move on and come back and try it again around this time next year after a lot of stuff has been shaken out. You may just regret this review at that point. I'd like to hear your opinion 1 year from now.

You know what I have found this game does not have (usually)... a ton of angry people sitting in Barrons chat literally flaming the crud out of each other. It doesn't have people that make it half way through an ubers run, get their gear and leave (ruining the party). It has a massive and mature base that have ethics.

Real money comments: Crowd sourced model
Grinding mobs comments: In every game I have played
PvP comments: Game is in beta still
Crafting Comments: This game is in Beta still


Ratings: Irrelevant, this game is in beta still.

Starmans rating of SOTA at this point compared to other betas.... Very good and very polished for being 7 months out from release.

'nuff said!

 

Are you playing when you're sleeping

 

"Were calling it early development now"

 

I don't dance in my underwear.

 

You should try it sometime.

 

Its in beta.. some stuff still sucks. We need to tell them what we dont like so we can still get sth changed. Complaining after a release makes less sense.

I think lot of ppl are frustrated and have invested more money in this than they should have. Makes us all emotional from time to time, myself included.

all we can and should do is try to provide solid reason and facts why sth is flawed or needs change. I think the OP does that in some parts.

Id wish to see progress faster, because for a lot of us getting to the final wipe feels as a release... no matter how they name it. Its either stick through it and trust.. or bail out with the pledge while you can

 

IF your reffering to the its current state then fine But this is not Yet a Game!. This is still in construction and the devs said they have a lot of work to do..
So comparing it to the games you listed is first of all not accurate and Sota is suppost to be different but we will not really know until its finished in 1 year or so.. ( The final wipe is just that a final wipe and is NOT the finished product )

So with that being said I would say that many of your points are valid.. such as
1: Non-PVP player should not be able to attack a PVP player or else once doing it will bring up a dialog box to switch to pvp mode..
2: PVP enabled users should have a timer, with a visible count down ( To let the opponent know that he is switching to non PvP mode ) so PVP cannot just turn off or run out of a scene to turn off their PVP.. and PVP encounters should also reinvoke in the world map so you can bring him/her back in the previous scene for battle if you follow him out of the map ).
3: Loot and other aspects are unbalanced and the devs did mentioned they are going to even this out in June/July..
4: There is much more content planed that I think sis going to be a game changer,, such as Darklords Attacking NPC towns and POTS.. and things like this will surely add some spice into things. This is planned for July/August..

This is not meant to be a game that one masters in a weekend or even a few weeks.. or go around being able to fight large monsters/Bosses after just enabling your character.. this game is suppose to be for the long run and take a while to slowly build up your character.. there will be a story,, and story line ( depending what path you choose ) and also random events in which some will be large events. to keep us entertained while we build up our Characters..

 

I think people are underestimating the potential of the game. Even for those who love it. You can not compare with other games because it is a different creation, unique in many ways. You just need to be patient and imagine the polished game.
By now discuss what it have and what is missing is pointless (except for feedback)

 

i dont think its pointless since this is still in the making there is time to change certain things before final release.

 

I think the devs should find a way first to implement flagging pvp into the game lore and world.

Right now it caters too much to "outer world" issues But I think community is also responsible for the bad state of the game. Because we all lost too much time arguing ffa full loot vs hugbox consent instead of contributing for the people that love a middle ground. Thats the majority, and we as community hardly worked for a solution... there were 2 camps of idiots (sry but they are) and people reasoning in between werent heard.

Its not over yet.. but we need more infos on the devs vision for the game... like the telethon.. but maybe more focus on the issues discussed here.

big changes are needed. And they were announced in the telethon.

 

I meant the comparison made between games and the review of an unfinished product as if it were something almost definitive (that isn't)

I'm sorry, I would like to write better but my broken english + google translator *ahem*.... It is soo slow and frustrating

 

Used to spend literally 100s hours poisoning stuff to get up to 90 poisoning in uo. Will not do that here.

 

No doubt. If some vagiwrinkle attacks a pvp-flagged player and then runs away and cant be caught, the system is broken. If you don't want in on pvp, then your not in, period. Yes even if a flagged player attacks one of your flagged friends! C'mon man. There has to be a way for the person who got ganked by a 'blue' to at least go after their killer?! Yes outside the 'scene' which is also a bad mechanic even if its here to stay imo. Great way to really drive all the pvp away from this game, except maybe the rp-pvpers if there is even such a thing? Maybe in this game there will be. But it will suck.