*FEEDBACK: Will this be the game I hoped it would be? *

BACKGROUND

I was drawn to SOTA on the hope of a new adventure akin to what I experienced playing the Ultima series (3 to 7) as a child. When I heard that SOTA was to be multiplayer I thought "How cool, I always wanted to play through an Ultima type RPG game with friends. In fact, playing the original Ultimas was often done alongside friends and family.

When the kickstarter came out, I promptly contacted as many friends and family as I could to get them to sign up. Pretty much everyone that I convinced to get involved, signed up on the back of having played the original non-multiplayer Ultima's. We were all interested in playing through together, completing quests and unraveling the storyline.

I know many others are here from having experienced UO, which is fine, I'm just giving you some background into why I (and friends) purchased SOTA, so you understand my feedback.

Those who have read my earlier posts, going back over 2 years (3 years?) will see that I've been very positive about this game right from the beginning, normally jumping to the defense of the team when people have been critical. I've loved the process of following along, watching the game grow and being part of the discussions about it's future. I think it's an amazing team both from a technical standpoint and also personality wise.

But as we've come closer to launch I've become quite disillusioned with things. My main gripe is with the lack of focus on the story/quests/npcs as I'll outline below.

Today I heard Portalarium are introducing a new revenue model which is 'buy coins to use for in-game gold and just about anything else (since everything uses gold to one degree or another). This sent alarm bells off in my mind - I thought this game would sell millions of copies, given the amount of people around the world who loved the Ultima's of old, wouldn't that be enough (at $45 a sale) to fund the game? Especially given they have sold nearly $9 mil already in pledges etc. Surely sales of Episode II, III, IV and V would keep the money rolling in without needed pay to win mechanics?

Now people are expected to buy the game and then purchase coins to power up (someone's going to be buying them right???). This was the model used in the very unsuccessful 'Ultima Forever'. All I wanted was a multi-player Ultima, instead it looks like a pay-to-play MMO without much focus on the RPG story side of things.

Anyway, here's my impressions:

IMPRESSION OF THE GAME AS OF R30

Let me start by saying I'm very happy with many things about Shroud. My impressions below is focused on the very negative, but I acknowledge the amazing things the team have done. It's just that I'm feeling pretty disappointed about the things that mattered to me most about this game from the beginning.

The *very* BAD Quests, Storyline, NPCs and Towns
Over the years of development the focus has been mostly on the multiplayer side of things and the game has gone in the direction of an MMO rather than a single/multiplayer RPG adventure. I haven't really had too much of an issue with this, as it's always been said that compelling quests and gameplay would come on board once game mechanics were in place.

Up until R30 I avoided trying out the main quests as I wanted to wait until they were more polished but decided I wanted to see what state the quests are in, given the final wipe is only months away and the release of the game likely by the end of the year.

The storyline itself seems very solid and interesting but the quest mechanics and user interface that are used to portray the story are in my opinion VERY lacking and the process of a new user playing through is shockingly bad (see following).

Firstly, the UI is terrible. The text is difficult to read for many, the font is ugly and there is no nice background as would normally be found in a RPG.

At this point in time (please tell me this will change) the NPC models are all completely generic including main quest characters. It makes it impossible to properly 'experience' them as NPCs - even Ultima 6 & 7's NPC portraits would be better!

NPC towns: The towns are in a terrible state.
* Most are super slow to load
* NPC buildings are so sparsely decorated that it's embarrassing.
* Player lots are 'in your face' in most towns (Kiln is a nice exception) and totally ruin the RPG vibe. The lots are like junk yards with all kind of stuff strewn around and a mess of varying housing styles chucked in. Contrast this with the towns in other RPGs (even older Ultimas) that have a level of consistency, a regional flavor and a layout that makes sense from a practical standpoint.

Last weekend I convinced a friend to install the game. He's been waiting for the release but decided it was time to give it a go. This is someone who was such a big fan of the original Ultima's he had an Ankh tattooed on his chest!.

Watching him play helped solidify in my mind that this game has (to many of us) headed in the wrong direction. He was totally confused about where to go, what quests to get, how the multiplayer quests worked etc. It was very sad to see this big fan of the original Ultima's stumbling around in Shroud and not getting the same level of adventure that was provided by the originals.

There's no decent sense of progression through the game. You kind of just grind away until you are high level enough and then hack your way through the one dimensional quest (as of the current state of things).

When exploring scenes you never seem to find anything interesting like you do in other RPGs. For instance, you come across an abandoned hut in a scene. There's no hidden treasure (the most you will find is a rusty sword), no NPCs (you virtually never find an NPC away from the towns), no maps to special locations, no lost recipes. I've all but given up actually exploring scenes apart from looking for resources to harvest or monsters to kill. (is that all there is to it???).

Even the quest scenes I found my way into (the necropalis) didn't seem to have hidden doors, little side quests or anything at all interesting. The scene itself looked good but was largely static apart from the monsters and quest characters. Maybe I've become too jaded and I'm not looking properly, but after a while you just give up looking.

I'm still hoping for some kind of miracle turn-around where they go out and employ a sub-team of people to come in and work with Scott Jennings (@Lum) to do justice to the story/quest/npc side of the game. I feel that @Lum has been expected to do too much - most other RPGs dedicate much more than one person to this part of the game. Check out Divinity: Original Sin - the story was much weaker than SOTA's story, but the quest mechanics and quests themselves were so much better and interesting to play through even with multiplayer.

*******************

Things I do like about SOTA:

In-depth crafting
Combat is coming along well now with the new targetting
Team is made of great people
Graphics are looking good now - some scenes look fantastic. (Most city's not so good though)
Storyline is great (but badly supported by quests / npcs)
Community is great
Housing system works really well (needs polish of course, and player housing should be away from city centers)
POTENTIAL FOR A GREAT GAME IS ALL THERE!

 

I wont spend a dime more till it is a said: finished game, If I am required too, Im out. that said, they are a long ways from finished. Agreed they need to develop a strong story line with lots of carrots, because I didn't come just to grind. Grinding is ok, if you have a inspired dream. My biggest hope, which I am sure once again I am wrong, that after the land rush and they have the houses where they want - for a set look, then I HOPE they go full open range. Like how, lifeisfeudal.com is approaching it but they have there slow process and Problems as well.

 

Yes! Absolute! But at the moment there are big construction zones and failures! One of the biggest are the new durability-system and the obsidian crowns! To buy crowns in the shop is like P2W and "official goldselling". I understand that Portalarium wants to make money, but when not enough people buy something in the shop, they have to think about it and offer better and interesting things - not necessary and required things to repair the own stuff or sell it for ingame gold!

The things, people mostly buy in shops are costumes and pets!
Make costumes! Make more clothes we can wear and look more individual - but without any function - just optical!
Make pets! A lot of pets! People love pets! No function, just look cute (or terrifying *gg*) and have nice animations

And offer things we only can buy in the shop - the most things are also buyabe ingame or craftable.
But nothing with function. Nothing we "need"!

Costumes - Pets - Decorations

 

Or just make a great game and sell lots of copies like other rpgs do. Build into the cost the cost of running the servers and sell new content like expansions, like The Witcher 3 did with ' blood and wine.'

 

Could you give us more details, like which quests need work... Starting with NPC names, town, building... Cuz I have no idea what you're talking about...

 

This only works for real RPGs.
The crown announcment told us what this game actually is: a mmo.
Like it or not (and i know a lot of peoplee won't like it) but thats what we have here, an mmo.

 

E.g. The start of the Love story line, pretty much all npcs

 

then you involve the corporate world, and thats where you get into bed with promises that compromise the game.

 

When changes are explained, no one even thinks or discusses the effects on single player offline. The changes to durability, for example, would affect a solo player without access to an "economy". They could create differences for solo with different loot drops, npc prices, etc. BUT I don't expect any significant attention to it anymore and there certainly isn't from the vast majority of invested players.

I agree with you, it's time to be honest about what this is and has become.

 

not so, I dont like classic Rp, but I RP every time I log on. why, because for one my name isnt Marcus and I couldnt weld a sword if my tried. and when I address others in game by the screen name you are infact rping.
if this turns into a format like some of the others, where is just hack and slash and move on to the next grind with no value, then I will not spend any more money than I have to.

 

single player mode is a trojan horse. hates it being part of the game.

 

It seems such - but wasn't presented that way originally. I guess that is the reality of trojan horses!

 

Don't get me wrong, it's not like I am happy about this.
We have quite a few people here that came for the offline RPG.

 

At some point there will be the divergence between online and offline. The rebalance of combat and economy will be done separately. I think I read it either from the final wipe thread or Q2 2016 plan.

 

The 2 systems Im sure can have and will have completely different systems / balance levels. The answer is to playtest it and give feedback relevant to your play experience in the game mode that you personaly favour.
ie companions in 1 player are an entirely seperate system. Tweaking durability for 1 player would be a very easy single line of code so just let them know.

Lastly at different stages of the project more focus will be on one aspect or other of the game, heading towards persistence , which obviously effects multiplayer only, there is going to be more focus on getting the
relevant systems upto scratch, and storyline wont be anything like finished ie the singleplayer experience untill nearer December this year so keep letting them know what you want added or changed.
Afterall they want to sell you guys 4 more expansions after this one so if noone likes the singleplayer theyre losing a lot of their future playerbase. (Personaly Im multilayer only but might play the single player one day , I used to love ultima pre Uo days.)

 

I've been here since the beginning with the original KS promises. These same explanations have been used for 3 years. There is no expectation that at some magic tipping point the focus is going to switch away from an MMO to the solo offline mode. There are always new questions, issues, mechanics, debates with an MMO. These won't die down even if there is a real "release" at some point. It will hold the attention, there's too much momentum behind it. Not arguing it here, just pointing out its an issue for acceptance at this point.

 

I'm sorry, but I think many, and I mean many of the original backers, (I believe they said it was about 50% at the kickstarter) were and are in this game for the single-player game-play ( a spiritual Ultima successor from the original series), and that promise will be fulfilled. I don't think it's time to admit it was a Trojan horse, it's just time to admit (again) that this game is being developed with an open, iterative process, and that definitely includes quests. They start simple as a proof of concept, and outline where the player needs to go to complete the game loop. Then they are fleshed out and all the details can be added. Adding detail early in the design phase leads to a ton of wasted time, because things change during development. The world needs to be in, the story needs to be in, then the quests can be designed around the story.. and then the details like unique-looking NPCs can be fleshed out around the finalizing quests.. Don't be disheartened by what you see! Yes, more people will need to help @Lum as this comes together over the next 8 months, and I bet the money made off these gold-obsidian crowns will help pay for them!

In the meantime, please post what you are hoping to see and experience, to ensure the team is planning these quests in a way that lives up to expectations (and hopefully exceeds them in many ways).

 

Yes, that's the thing... I think some of Port's past decisions have turned away people from actually buying the base game, and also has turned away some people who did pledge for the base game from interest in paying more in for the future episodes. While I think its okay for them to have supplemental funding to run the servers... even Witcher DLCs include purely cosmetic content... they have to be more concerned in creating an attractive game for people that want to play.

I think the biggest group that Port has turned away are people who are interested in the core RP game, and not so interested in things like social events and dance parties. By just focusing their marketing on the purely social stuff, but also doing stuff in the add-on store that went against the grain of RP and affected the look and feel of the world, and at the expense of spending more dev time on creating RP content that fit the game world. So, for instance, I've read a lot of the negative comments on online articles about SotA's housing system, and one of the complaints has always been how awful the towns looked. These people were upset by the cash-for-housing system in the first place, but the fact that the deco and everything went against the RPG vibe of the game just added insult to injury. Its one thing if cash helps you get housing, and the housing system improves the game for everyone; its another if cash helps you get housing, and it's purely selfish and harms the look and feel of the game as an RP environment.

Consider it -- the biggest audience Shroud could have is from core Ultima fans, Elder Scrolls fans, Witcher fans, etc., who only ever wanted an RPG they can play with friends. That's a big market just to buy the core game --- before you even take in consideration supplemental funding from microtransactions. The more attractive the game is to that group of people, the healthier the game will be in the long run, and the more support the game will get from the RPG community.

What I'm hoping for is that the new funding model will at least allow them the leeway to shift focus to more RP related content, and not use funding as an excuse to put in the more silly add-on content in the game. Port needs to protect the integrity of the game they're creating to attract more players and keep their playerbase.

The second biggest group that Port has turned away I think are going to be the PvP people, who come from UO and want meaningful combat in the game. That's a harder issue to deal with because of the commitments Port has made to consensual PvP, but I think RPers and PvPers share a lot of common ground, and there are a lot of good ways to do it.

 

It's my understanding this is why @Berek took over @FireLotus's position so that she could work specifically on the story and NPC dialog. There is a ton of placeholder text and polish that needs to take place and it's getting done. But you have to understand that even $10M is nothing when it comes to video games which take 10s of millions if not over a hundred million dollars to completely fund and polish. Most other similar games cost almost $100M. The team is very small and they have multiple jobs for each person. This is why they need all the extra money they can get to be able to hire more developers to have more specialized developers on each part of the game including the story. If you've paid attention, the quality and number of scenes in the game, have increased dramatically over the past few months, this is because they hired several new developers to fill those positions. So as they make more money and can hire more developers the quality of the game will increase in different areas.

 

Eh, are you kidding?

Pretty much all of them!!!