Population Concerns

That sums it up for me. Also combat is very clunky and when you enter Combat you actually start off with all your skills coming off a cooldown. So you first have to wait untill they are from cooldown before you can start the action, while the mob is already beating on you. This sort of unfun mechanics are mindboggling. Players should be empowered, not be forced to first suffer through a global cooldown.

Combat feels very hands-off anyway. The immersion and RP possibilities could be endless but the horrible combat is killing the game for me.

 

I agree with that. Indeed, I'd probably go as far as saying the game has no soul. When I play it, there's just no life to it. It feels flat, boring and very underdone.

 

Combat has been a hot mess since the first day we were allowed to play the game. It staggered along for ages until, with the persistent game in sight, they tried to fix it... but it did nothing... and it's still terrible.

I have people say to me that it's fine, even that they enjoy it... but I just can't see it. I've played a lot of MMOs over the last 19 years and combat in SotA is at the bottom of the list of them all, by quite some way.

The frustrating thing is, with the calibre of some of the people in this project, even if some team members weren't quite up to the task of delivering good combat, the vets should have noticed and stepped in to fix things.

 

ya...ok I have 5 accounts lol

 

I read the past few pages.

I will take the counter argument. Many of the things people complain about, I absolutely love. I have been waiting for a "hard" game for 15+ years (like UO). I played all the "easy" games over the years like Wow that take you along a simple rail for your (fixed) leveling. I adore the "complexities" of this game that other people call "fun inhibitors". The game *does* feel like Ultima to me (as someone who has played it since 3 was released). I also would like to resist the tyranny being imposed by other that this needs to be fixed. I think this complexity is like this by plan and I like it. Yes, things are being worked on, half the complaint here are on systems still under construction (people continue to forget that massive changes happen every month, this game is still 6 months away from being ready or more).

 

Steam numbers are not really valid. Most people such as myself bought the game on steam, put hundreds of hours in it them switched to the normal download and have put thousands more on since.

 

I"ve been hitting every NPC town, every PRT & every POT that I can reach ever since Port introduced town crier gold. Some PRT's like Port Mirren are virtual ghost towns with just a handful of people living there with semi-furnished (ok pretty unfurnished) houses and a forlorn vendor or two waiting for customers who"ll never come. That was expected though since PRT's are less preferable as a rule than NPC towns or POTS.

What sort of worried me was how many unfinished POTS there were. A few had no houses I could see, just your town crier & banker. Some were towns much larger than Breaker's Landing (the hamlet I live in) but had less people living there. Most didn't have the polish , richness or liveliness of POTS like Wizard's Rest, Lux Sanctuary or even BL - traits which are good indicators of healthy community.

I look at how few new avatars are posting in the forum's new member section and I have the sinking feeling that many POTS will never be filled to the point where these are sustainable. This trend *has* to be reversed somehow, it's bad enough that so few people play in multiplayer - the potential sight of so many desolate towns would send the wrong message to anyone whose considering joining us here.

 

I think *perhaps* there are those (like me) who are waiting. I've been experimenting with my little Hold but frankly... it can be a PITA getting things set up...the long awaited POT tools are coming "soon(TM)" which is sad.... they should have been implemented prior to going persistent IMO. I never cared for the "parking lot" pot.. Forest01 and switched to 1a (think that's what it is) but obstacles .. BIG trees etc....abound meaning I can sink a ton of time trying to get things arranged.. only to offer my little space to an empty world OR... wait until the tools are finally in. At least if I wait..I won't be wasting time I could be spending developing my char; or shopping in the addon store which never seems to lack for dev attention (ok /s on the last bit).

-sol

 

I would suggest it's not very hard, though. SotA is incredibly basic, when you boil things down. Giving it a clunky, un-intuitive interface doesn't make the game "hard". It makes it frustrating, certainly. But it's not hard.

 

I disagree. It does not frustrate me.

 

There are people who get on fine with the SoTA interface. I'm not going to deny you that; I believe you. But I'm also finding an increasing number of people, however, who are standing up and saying they don't.

Plus, of course, many have simply left the game for good. That's a negative vote in itself.

 

Isn't it usually so that people who dislike a certain thing are more vocal than those who are ok with it? I know that I've grown tired of always repeating "...but I like that for such and such reasons". I'd rather spend my time enjoying the game than refuting complaints on the forums so I mostly keep out of these threads.

Regarding the point @Numa raised about population in towns... what is the alternative? That at "release" there are no more lots available for new players? In the towns I regularly frequent I've seen an increase of lots claimed rather than a downward trend. I think with the changes to travel speed and encumbrance we will see a further "clustering" of players around "trade hubs", but is that necessarily a bad thing?

I have no valid observations regarding player population, the initial topic here in my guild there is some fluctuation but also some people I see online regularly. I am less afflicted by not enough people to play with than the hassle with he time-zones

 

Im a firm believer in the squeeky wheel gets the fix. I am far harder on the devs then most people I think. I bark all the time about the things I think need to be fixed.

But I do it in a constructive way.

This game is still being heavily built. Technically its still in alpha (although I think they dont call it that now). Last release was a massive unity upgrade that added DX11 to the game. Massive stuff still being fixed. So saying that...

I have absolutely no respect for anyone who has come into this game during the 10 months I have played, just comes to these forums and complains (without constructive feedback) and then quits the game because they feel the interface is "clunky" (or any other reason). Even worse if they are "gone for good".

The *PURPOSE* of playing this game even now under persistence is to shake it out for the dev's, help them with bugs and make suggestions.... that they VERY much listen to.

If those people cant deal with an alpha, then why did they sign up for an alpha?


If those people come back in Q1 (or whenever now) at the release of this game ( will probably a few months after with say SP1 patch) and they feel the game still bad and want to quit then I will fully support them. But on the flips side, I *will* blame them for not helping fix the situation with constructive feedback for the devs to help fix the issues.

sorry, most people are clearly not apt at beta testing games.

 

That's certainly the line that gets used whenever someone doesn't like the game. I just wonder how long it can continue, after years of development? Will we be here in 2019 and, "it's still under development" if something's no good?

The problem I have (as someone following this before there was even a playable game), is not that the game needs time, or that I have no patience for following MMOs in beta. Far from it, I've followed and enjoyed the process many times.

No, the problem I have is that core aspects of the game, like combat or crafting, seem to have been coded as barely thought through half-ideas, rather than appearing in a much more thought out way from the start, THEN being refined.

Particularly at a point of persistence, to still have systems that "need work", is a real worry to me. What should be going on at present is world building. More maps, more quests, etc. Not trying to nail down systems after the game's persistent.

 

This is all your opinion and I disagree with it. I still continue to have a great time playing the game over the past 10 months with thousands of hours into it.

People use that phrase as I did when appropriate.

If you biotch about bugs, I'm gonna give you that line.

How about you stop complaining about it and start getting constructive about the issues and help the devs?

Where in this post do you complain about something and offer a solution. I love people who are construtive. Im far harder on the devs then you but I offer them constructive solutions, I dont just whine.

you finally drop into the fatal flaw where you compare "persistence" to a final product. You are perfectly welcome to define persistence how you personally choose to but read even the notices on these forums or the button that you press to enter the game. This gave is still being *HEAVILY* built and there is a lot that needs to be fixed and to be honest dude, they have plenty of time to deal with it.

 

No. No. No. I'm not comparing persistence to a final product. I thought that was obvious by the way I indicated that I'm totally fine with the game still being under construction; but it should be CONTENT not SYSTEMS.

Once a game is persistent, if you have silly SYSTEMS in place, you start having people level to GM in crafting, for example, by doing silly, unrealistic things -- one of the key complaints in the current thread about crafting.

Then, when you fix the game, you have future people come along and tread a path 10x harder than thousands of people before them who levelled to GM, or whatever the case might be, under the old, silly system.

It creates a situation where people playing at the start of the persistent world often reap rewards, level faster, whatever the case might be in a way completely incompatible with how people do it in the future, which is sucky.

That's why it's so important to get the SYSTEMS right before you go persistent. Again, content can come later. Content can keep coming for years. Indeed; that's what typically happens in MMOs anyway, so that's not new.

In terms of "being constructive" I don't offer anything because, in truth, the only thing I can say in good conscience to these guys is, "Go back to the drawing board..." because that's what's needed, but obviously won't happen.

 

At some point we should all agree to disagree and move on. I am one of the worst to remember this but its still a good thing to do.

 

Frankly, the actual player numbers are irrelevant to me when playing the game. It doesn't matter to me whether the Steam numbers are an accurate reflection of a decline in population. What matters to me is that logging in the game feels populated with people. There is evidence of people, there's certainly a population of homes. But the streets in the vast majority of towns I visit are devoid of life.

Is the server population low? Is it high but players would rather play SPO or FO modes? Is the population high but the world is simply too large? How is a world with 300 towns to fill those towns with life?

I returned to UO and my old shard, Catskills, a few months ago. I just couldn't play. The towns seemed empty, despite there being a small population. I'm not even experiencing a small population here. I'm experiencing a miniscule population. That's disheartening to me and people who share my interest in an online world that feels alive with people.

Can it change? Sure. Assuming it will, that there aren't valid concerns over the tumbleweeds blowing through the roads, isn't helping it to change if there are actionable problems that contribute to what the population looks like right now.

We shouldn't need numbers to consider potential problems because the problem isn't numbers. The problem is experiential. Whether 100 or 100,000 are logged in now, if I'm not experiencing those other players, there are issues worth contemplating and valid concerns to be expressed.

 

I judge to population by our guild numbers and who is logged in. After persistence I think we had 100 on at one time, usually 75+. Now Im lucky to see 25. Player numbers are way down. The fact is that most of those numbers came after persistence. It may be just the case that a lot of people dont want to play until release and they logged in to check stuff out and get their lots. They may have moved to more casual play. I think this is more likely the case since those people are pledging people (some big).

I doubt Portalarium would ever release the real numbers. The most important being how many new people started the game and keep playing the game.

I usually play in friends mode so I really dont care how many people play this game now, jsut as long as its around for me to play it. If its just me alone on the server then I could care less.

My issue right now is that with Civ6 out, I cant stop clicking the "next turn" button. But I'll burn out on Civ like I usually do after a month and resturn.

 

Which is, of course, part of the problem. You're contributing to the, 'This server is dead..." talk which encourages less people to be active. Less active people equals less money and, over time, the game will go *pop* into thin air.

So while it may be OK for now and you can say, "Just as long as its around for me to play it..." and everything's working for you... great. But one day the server will go dead and you'll be asking why. ^ This is why. Flagging it now.