Four Years (or, Why free passes re: development have to stop)

As usual we take this off topic to argue with each other .......................... (¬º-°)¬ And one point to make regarding ' our individual perceptions during development and the free pass concept'

yeah no worries. And you are right lol, it was an omg moment at first. In the end I do believe it will all work out for the best. The feedback will be invaluable going forward. And imo I say to the @Devs, get Lum some help please or buy a sidequest program, whatever. We hire world builders and all which is great but this game world is way too big to be so void of quests, an achievement system, and reasons to play and explore. Lum is working his butt off. It's craziness.

 

This is why good UI people are worth their weight in gold. Some of those old games were so obscure that you will never figure out some puzzles unless you were using the same train of thought the dev who designed the game you were not going to figure it out unless you got the hint book. Also there were bugs in D&D Tactics that you could not get past and there was no hope for you because it never got patched.
Things shouldn't be unintuitive so that people can pat themselves on the back for being clever. Is the UI guy that they got a few years ago still with us?

 

To Majoria70's point, just wanted to note (once again... ) that there are many talented writers in the SotA community who would be happy to help out with side quests if necessary

 

I agree 1000% with respect to Lum needing help. I'm curious to know... Is it a budget issue? Recruitment challenges? Other?

 

There's two sides to this coin.

• On one hand, the devs have done some things that make me question their ability to pull off a project like this. I genuinely wonder what would've happen to the game had they failed to get more funding through telethons and only had the kick-starter money to work with. They've constantly brushed off a lot of complaints concerning the flow of quests (mine go as far as 2014) only to acknowledge the issues now. Knowing that it's practically impossible to progress in the game without using magical abilities is one thing, not doing anything about it is another. The fact that they lack a working prototype of their game means that they're the kind of developers that just work to turn various systems into something fun, rather than to give meaning to an already fun game concept. Those kind of things seem completely backwards for me as a developer.

However...

I like to think that my usual harshness towards the game would add some weight when I say this: How long they take to get to a certain point and where we think we are in development is irrelevant. You shouldn't chastise the developers for this.

• They've stated countless times that they're just barely getting systems done. I think it doesn't help when they're constantly elaborating on existing system when other systems are clearly lacking; giving us a skewed perception. We have instancing, housing, resource gathering, crafting, trading, combat, dialogue, questing and all sorts of social tools and these things practically all need to work. Something that most games (including MMOs) don't do with any sense of sophistication. Now, I don't necessarily agree with their methods, but this is something that they've communicated from the very beginning: they do a bunch of systems, mesh them together, then build the game on top... and they have level builders working in parallel.

So long as they understand what they need to focus on and, more importantly, understand what needs to be done... that's all I could really ask from them at this point in time.

They think they'll be ready by the end of the year (with the main quest around july)... godspeed to them.

There are many things to which I'll complain to the developers about, "how long they took to get to this state" is not one of them.

 

Completely understood... but it's completely normal in game development... really. Try This... that didn't work... ok... do this... that's better but not there yet... <epiphany and rebuild everything>... iterate on the epiphany until it works... The kind of thing that would drive "normal" business stakeholders completely insane and have the whole development team fired... The difference is THEIR business stakeholders used to be developers. And we... the secondary business stakeholders... just (for the most part) aren't familiar with their sausage making process and the reality makes a lot of people want to puke.

And, putting something out and iterating over it until it meets requirements is a central part of Agile... or until Business gets tired of tweaking it more.

 

It really isn't.

The experimental stages are usually done on smaller systems during polish; Everything else tend to be done by a strike team prior. A working prototype is essential to getting your project green-lit. Tons of studios have multiple prototypes being worked on for this very purpose.

 

Just thinking out loud here... Since this is fundamentally a quest-based game about ethical decision-making, how about some side quests which speak to some of the challenges facing our online community?

For example... exploring the phenomena of Name-calling, abuse of pejoratives, false characterizations, false dichotomy, etc.

Or how about if the obsidian cabalists go around Novia casting themselves as "white knights" taking offense on behalf of others, and setting about to "defend" them without their permission or consent?

[Ok I'm sitting by the pool with too many beers in my system, but am half-serious here. ]

 

Have I made a AAA game? No. However, am I capable of looking at games, side by side, and comparing features, the amount of time it conceivably takes to write 1000s of quests, create 100s of hrs of voice over work, etc?

And that's what's in my reply. The concept that a 5 or 6 year game likely has those things yet , as SotA enters its fifth year of development, it has nothing like that. Not even a game world unencumbered by instances.

Makes me wonder... should a game on a 10 million budget, and limited staff, be trying to replicate AAA behemoths? The original focus on a single player game, with limited multiplayer was, in theory, the right way, I think.

And sure, I recognise these are prickly questions for some; people who don't want to think in ways they might perceive as negative. I don't see them as negatives, however, simply just "thoughts". I think thoughts are healthy.

 

I agree with the sentiment behind this question. Here's the problem - to keep this game running the way it needs to be running, they need to draw in a LARGE amount of users at launch. A lot of those new players will be faced with the decision of SotA, or one of the AAA games that it is competing directly against. (There are some soapboxers that will shout from the rooftops that there IS no direct competition, because sandbox vs themepark blah blah, but those users are kidding themselves.)

What, exactly, will draw those new players to SotA over the super polished AAA games which cost the same (or even less)?

This road was set upon the instant that Port decided to bring the camera down to eye level and do everything in full high res 3d. If they had stuck with an isometric design, they could have delivered a product already.

I posted this exact question a while back in its own dedicated thread. And after nearly 200 responses, bickering, name calling, and more... no one was actually able to answer it. The closest anyone came was the sandbox argument, which I simply don't think is strong enough. Sandbox features alone will not draw in enough people.

 

Indeed. Sandbox isn't as big a draw as some think. Don't get me wrong, either... I love sandbox, and would even extol its virtues during, say, the early days of SWG when the MMO market, en masse, was hating the concept.

"What's that? A game that doesn't tell you what to do? Where are the quests? Where am I supposed to go?!? ARRRGGGHHHHH!" Sandbox was hated for years and, even now, is more popular, but still its own sort of niche.

I don't even see SotA as properly sandbox, anyway. I see open world environments as going hand in hand with sandbox. SotA doesn't have that. Even the concept of only putting houses on pre-defined plots isn't sandbox to me.

My personal POV is a single player game, with limited multiplayer (potentially even keeping the isometric design you mention), could have made something more unique looking and feeling, building a strong player base. Oh well.

 

If it had been a sandbox survival game then it would be enough, plenty of early access success stories in that genre. But I don't think devs from Ultima and UO could have got away with doing only that, as it was the PVE , RP and questing that people also funded. That is not to say other UO devs should not try, for there are certainly kickstarters up now going for the 8b Ultima knockoff and the PVP only UO knockoff.

Speaking for myself I would not have participated,, although I do the survival games I am the odd man out that enjoys the deserted island survival feeling without all the other players kicking over my sandbox, I play ESO MMO as a lone wolf enjoying the questing without grinding. I would have been perfectly happy with an Ultima clone that had an multiplayer crafting store and dungeon add-on. Take Divinity Original Sin and expand out the multiplayer a bit more.

But in painting themselves into the MMO box, they will be compared to ESO and whatever else is diverting to their attention. Personally I will be in Morrowind this summer, so I have no reason to post other than to preserve my Knight Marshall investment for the future (either by playing or selling), that is if this game survives release and is around years from now.

 

Its not a real sandbox game unless I can burn down other people's houses.

 

"Fight all you want, Portalarium will make more!"

 

Indeed, and while there are people who feel they need to be loyal and/or truly don't like theme park games, there are plenty of people who straddle both worlds and have absolutely no problem with something like ESO.

I mean, for some gamers, being able to own a house in the middle of an ESO town (thanks to instancing), bought with in-game gold, with no weekly upkeep tax, and the ability to decorate it how they like is really appealing.

This comes back to my thought that, had the game gone down a different path (there's that pesky single-player with limited multiplayer thought again), it wouldn't be competing with ESO as it wouldn't be seen as a similar game.

 

Very good observation.

 

I think you underestimate the pull you likely have, as long as you continue to pump money into the game at least. Games that fund themselves largely on the contributions of a small number of players typically cater to those users to the point of having internal staff that are designated to monitor those users and direct game development to better serve them. That's largely on mobile, but an MMO SotA looks to be following a similar path.

 

Hrmmm... I need to talk to Berek to have my concierge assigned...

 

I completely wish they monitored me. If they did, melee (blunt) would have been fixed a year ago as well as PvP but alas... it has not yet. They sure aint following me

I need to watch what I say, I've already had one post deleted in here that had no business being deleted lol.

 

Well, at best you are one of a group, I don't think Port has quite reached the level of some mobile titles where high spenders are allocated specifically to internal employees who draw a salary based on how much they get their charges to spend