Repost of my grim Outlook - sorry for the negativity, and I can handle some flames :-)

Well, it's really up to Portalarium, not you or me.

I was just posting a fact, in response to a vague statement about what was promised.

 

Why are all of you reacting to the OP rants and unqualified remarks. I see no data or proof to a majority of what he writes.
I will save all my rants when this game is in final release and then maybe a year after. Right now it does not matter. As for wipes, be very careful. I bought and spent a lot of money on COTAs to pay my rent ($2,000 per day) way ahead of schedule. I would fully expect a full refund of those COTOs and any other investment I may have made that I could lose. I know I am not alone in this. Then there is the time I put in to get my character to an almost decent level. All the resources I have gathered. And yes I have been here for quite a few wipes as well.
But most important of all NONE of you paid my way so NONE of you have the right to tell me how or why I can play this game.
Let it play out and then *****. If you don't like it leave.

 

Context my friend... context, and below is another way to bold text in the quote you provided. Focusing on the worst case scenario, wiping anything is worst case and should be avoided at all costs. I imagine that going forward the only way we'd ever see a wipe happen would be if there was a technical problem that couldn't be resolved otherwise - a wipe done as a measure to balance player skills or gold reserves would cause irreparable damage to Portalarium's reputation as a game developer.

This Release will be different from all of those other releases because we are finally going Persistent. This means that the progress a player makes will no longer be reset every three months. Just because we are persistent, however, does not mean we are going to slow down! We will continue our Monthly Releases just like we always have. We still have features to implement, content to complete (see our Roadmap), and lots (and lots) of balancing to do. Even though this is the “Final Wipe” we are still in Early Access and, if needed, we will do small Rollbacks and/or Partial Wipes if we absolutely need to in order to maintain the health of the product.

 

Lolz, are you guys serious?

If you wipe the game again (xp, skills and what not), you will wipe everything for good... that's guaranteed!

Many would just leave/sell their accounts and move on, myself included...

 

My post was in response to a poster saying s/he was promised persistence and I pointed out the fact that they were not. I didn't post to have an opinion exchange about a different subject with you.

I know you and others are passionate about this, but try and calm down and fully read what is posted before running off on a tangent.

 

fact. we're in persistence. it is what it is, my friend.

 

If we are going to wipe progress (but not items/homes/etc.), just wipe character progress. People should stay with what they earned. Now, things that were learned like skills, journal entries for content, recipes, etc., if those things are "wiped" then I would like to suggest how.

Another cataclysm.

Not a total destruction of the world. And maybe not a total progress wipe (maybe have brackets, with everyone above 40 going to 40, and anyone above 20 but below 40 going to 20, and everyone below 20 - wait, what, you don't have skills at 20 or above!?!).

The Obsidian Order comes back and says "BOOM" you are too powerful and we are taking away all that you learned. Now we have new enemies to fight. And a bunch of content to explain the how's and why's. I know that would probably take a long time to implement, but really, it's better than getting a post from the developers saying that character progress would be wiped.

EDIT: And really, yes it would be cool to have content to support an idea such as this, but it could probably be done easily with some in-game explanation. Then the content to support it could be created later to explain the how's and why's as well as to support a new "faction" running around. Maybe have just one NPC now who makes this happen without player knowledge? Just spitballing.

I would ordinarily be against a wipe. But something explainable in the lore would be palatable.

 

Or the Silent Majority didn't bother to vote

 

Once again, a train heading to trainwreck station... What's the point of making the discussion to work around a hypothetic and unlikely solution? It is when people start discussing about measures without considering what required that measures to be taken in the first place when thread are desvirtuated and worthless. Try to focus on the problem (or the absence of it, depends on your stance), it is devs work to come up with the solution.

My source of disappointment comes from certain points i thought were included in the mainframe when designing this game. Some of them are getting love slowly, but others i don't see them pursued at all. In some cases i see the game progressing in a total different way. Here's what i expected from SotA.

• A game experience experience that drives you away from grinding content, encouraging you to explore and move around the world, looking for your own adventure to live.
• A character progression where players can enjoy content (being competitive) without being top level.
• A character progression where choices should be taken while leveling your character as an adventurer and a producer.
• A character progression where you can progress no matter what you dedicate your efforts to (IE gathering not being mandatory to build up experience).
• A world laid out in a way that you can actually decide where to go without taking in consideration game abstractions like the level of the mobs in the zone or the chance of meticulous collection to proc.
• A world to explore with scenes that dynamically change instead of being always full of what you need to grind.
• A combat system that pushes entirely for originality (instead of laying out some cool and original mechanics to then put all the effort in make them look as standard as they can be).
• A world where player to world interaction is done with logic and using immersive and elegant UI elements.
• An Overworld map that is actually an active part of the game, not an extra zone you use to go from zone A to zone B.
• A crafting system on which quality of items came from crafter dedication and quality of ingredients instead of massive grinding and RNG rolls.
• Gearing mainly focused in base values of defense/attack and masterworks giving minor advantages instead of stat bonuses.
• A meaningful and consensual PVP system intertwined in game lore, with a reason to exist, a purpose to fulfill and consecuences for your actions and decisions.

Maybe i was wrong and that was never the vision of the devs, but that's what i got from listening to hangouts and reading design threads since i started following the game. I don't want to enter in the need of proving what Portalarium said when, just call it my own expectations. On the other hand, even when i choose to blame my own expectations for my disappointment, i can also state that i never heard explicitly about some of this routes where going to be taken, or even desired by the community.

The bright side is that everything can still change and improved. And i hope it does.

 

The omnious silent majority isn't reading the forum.
And it was by far the poll with the strongest participation I have seen here.
But before you fully switch into siege mode let me point out that decent PVP isn't the same as full loot and all the other hardcore uo pk stuff.

 

I agree. Also, Solazur be like

 

To be fair, the grey market that exists is explicitly allowed, unsupported, and 'at your own risk'. It's unfortunate the way it's set up as now items, gold, and even skills can be entangled with real world dollars, amplifying the impact of changes to the game state. Should they not even consider roll backs (as they said they would)? Rollbacks could nullify in game transactions without nullifying the real money transactions. 'At your own risk' implies risk. People participating in that market have zero assurance from Portalarium. Personally, I don't think the grey market should be a consideration in their design decisions; I'm sure that it is and hampers development decision making.

 

That's the rub - the player market in the forums only serves to facilitate in-game transactions. Portalarium can post as many disclaimers as they like regarding RMT, they are enabling everything that's happening if not encouraging it. Take a look at any rares discussion in the forum and the community feedback concerning add-on store policies and follow that thread to what action is taken by Portalarium.

Other good things come from having a player market in the forums - Portalarium gets to keep and compile all the information, posts, deleted threads, PMs, etc... everything regarding resale... that sort of information doesn't come cheap and wouldn't even be a thing if we were all trading elsewhere.

And come on - the player market isn't a new thing. It was pledge and rares trading that brought in many of the players in game right now - that was an ongoing thing for years and years, right here in the forums and even with assistance from customer support. Now that folks are seeing commodities trade it's freaking them out - there's no way this outcome should be surprising to anyone.

 

In addition to this...there are people who made arrangements like planning their vacations from work to mesh with persistence so they could have dedicated POST wipe time to lay their foundations. That along with the thousands of $ spent makes it a magic trick to fix the mess via wipe. Port NEEDS to make a showing that they care about that.. other than the platitudes we hear at the beginning of each telehangout/whatever about how much they appreciate this amazing community. You can't (or really shouldn't) urinate on a leg while at the same time smiling in their face and talking about the unseasonal rain.

Edit: persistence was WAY too early..but if we look back...it seems Port thought it was the needed hype as in inflow of $ was grinding down. What we have now is what happens when the chickens come home to roost.

 

Portalarium could wipe the servers tomorrow and not owe any explanation to those who participated in the market (though I suspect they would ask for one, loudly).

I'm not sure how that information collection makes the game more fun (that's sort of my line for whether or not it can be considered a 'good thing').

I agree that this game was going to be RMT friendly from the start with pledge trading. I suppose the point was that there was some concern that the RMT activity could adversely affect game development if protecting that activity had to be considered in the development decision making. I would put forward that it is, and the hampering of their ability to correct imbalance issues with wipes, partial wipes, or rollbacks is evidence of that.

 

Yes, thank you, I am aware of the possibility of *small* rollbacks and partial wipes. Since I am not a native speaker I might possibly have misunderstood but what was discussed here did not sound like a small rollback or what I'd consider a partial wipe.

Does that sound like a small rollback to you?

I am totally fine with small rollbacks that cost me a few days game time but not months. In my opinion, if there is an exploit, it should be fixed immediately - and then it would be on the devs to decide if a rollback was needed or not.
Since I have no reliable information on how fast exploits have been fixed so far I will refrain from speculations.

 

Well i for one am relieved to see this post, not because the game isnt doing well, but because its one of the main posts like this that dont have the instant reply the game isnt released yet and is still in testing, maybe because weins is usually the one to state that, but now he is seeing what others have been seeing for a long time. That argument always kills me its crowdfunded, it isnt in release etc. Look at Pillars of Eternity, also crowd funded and guess what they 100% delivered an awesome game. No more excuses, get SOTA going or pull the plug on it though that will never happen, they will milk this cow with as many store bought items as they can then deliver some crap of a game and say sorry we tried.

 

I know it's impossible at this point, but as I've said well before, during, and after persistence, ending wipes this early was a very very VERY bad move.

I fully understand it's wishful thinking at best, but I'd really love to see a wipe once the game has plugged most glaring holes and basic mechanics and systems are FOR REAL in place.

I know it won't happen - too many things and interests are stacked against it - but daydreaming is free.

 

For some passives, and stats sure, but with stacking and attunement for actives, you are way off the mark

 

Uhh people are already doing that at an alarming rate without the wipes.