Why Ultima 7 was the high point of RPGs and not even SotA comes close

When I was playing Ulima 7 back in 1992 for me it was the best RPG I ever played (minus the awkward combat system). It had everything I always wished for.

A big world which was simulated and felt real, I could move every object around, discover hidden items underneath other items. Every NPC had his own personality, background and place in the world. I could watch the NPCs do their daily work thanks to the NPC schedules and find out some secrets by following them. The world felt so real as if it worked even without me doing anything. Baking bread was awesome! Even the wilderness felt real with animals roaming around, logical and well placed enemies, many things to discover. Wandering around with the party members felt so great as they commented on situations and all had their little backstory.

But after this game it seems that everything wet downhill. No other game reached this level of simulation or interactivity. This level of a world feeling "alive". Even every Ultima after part 7 was a huge step backward. It is as if this technology, this knowhow was somehow lost and we fell back to an age before this.

I always thought that when Ultima X would be released it would be in an ever bigger world I could explore in first person mode, seeing my companions walking beside me, I thought that the interaction with the world would be on an even higher level than in Ultima 7 and that the NPC schedules would be even more complex. That the world would feel even more alive with simulated animal behaviour and NPCs realling doing work, really creating the weapons and armor and other items we would need. Miners mining ore in a mine, melting it and the smith creating items out of it. Or farmers really cutting wheat, taking it to the miller who grinded it into flour and the baker making bread and cake out of it which other would buy... I expected an evolution from Ultima 7. But somehow it never happened.

Even games like Skyrim and The Witcher 3 - which come really close - still are huge steps behind Ultima 7 and my vision for "Ultima X". Even today, 25 years after Ultima 7 we still haven't reached this level again.

Not even with SotA, which wanted to be the spiritual successor to Ultima, with a "a virtual world more interactive than Ultima VII". It's just not there. It's as if the steps backward won't every lead to the high times of Ultima 7 again. It's as if by trying to reach it again the path forked and the devs have taken a different road. Away from simulation, immersion, interactivity. We even see this step back with the UI. Ultima 7 had no screen clutter, no windows, names, numbers or bars on screen and it worked. It helped feeling immersed in the world. Nowadays the screen is cluttered with info, and the game itself, the world, the immersion is pushed back...

And for me this is a sad development. I don't want to play in areas that are there for grinding reasons and offer legions of respawning monsters. I don't not want to play in a world in which NPCs don't have a real purpose or place in the world and don't go about their business. I don't want to play in a world which is not very interactive and doesn't feel simulated and "alive". I don't want to see windows, numbers, bars and other screen clutter. We had this in soooo many games since Ultima 7. Wouldn't it finally be time again for a world like in Ultima 7 @Lord British ?

 

Yes, @Lord_Darkmoon, we all know you're deeply disappointed. You've made this abundantly clear, with clockwork regularity for years.

 

Sorry, maybe it's time to step down from here and let go of pushing against the steering wheel which so many others want to move into certain direction. Sorry that my vision and whishes for the game are such a bête noire for many fans of SotA.

 

I've no objection to your vision... it's laudable... Personally I believe this product will never be able to satisfy your expectation. Perhaps if it had the funding of Star Citizen it might come... close. Star Citizen just passed $150M in backer funding this last weekend.

Ultima VII was released in Q3 of 1992... A quarter of a century ago... and you've been disappointed ever since. That's a very long time to hold onto disappointment. Perhaps it might be time to reevaluate.

 

Morrowind was my most amazing RPG experience. I hope that work continues on Morrowrift. Playing Morrowind in VR will be absolutely amazing!

 

Funny you mention Star Citizen. SotA and SC have been my most diappointing Kickstarters. You would think that games coming from these 2 guys would have been outstanding.

 

Personally I'm not holding my breath for Star Citizen. I have much higher hopes for the long term viability of this title.

Mr. Roberts has a penchant for burning through cash and failing to produce a finished product.

• Shroud of the Avatar started development in 2013 and is rough, not all of the systems are finished, performance tuning still needs a lot of work, and most of the game still needs to be balanced... But the game is Stable and Playable and people have been living and playing in the world since persistence.
• Star Citizen began development in 2012 and has managed to produce a couple of buggy test bed applications that run poorly and crash frequently even on my higher than average capability rig. And... a whole lot of really pretty screenshots of things promised.

Shroud I rate as Much more likely to 'complete'. And yes... I'm invested in both, admittedly, more here by a considerable margin.

 

I agree 100%. I hope Star Citizen does well, I have had a pledge in it for some time but have probably less then 3 hours into it. Every time I try to get into it I cant, just to "raw" still. I'm doing what I think a lot of people are still doing in SOTA, waiting for full release.

On the flip side, SOTA has been 90% playable since I started 1.5 years ago and I have thousands of happy hours in it.

 

I would LOVE SOTA to play like Ultima 7 quests/stories.. and I haven't even scratched the surface of Ultima 7 (I play on Exult, and am amazed I have never played this game in my youth)..

Keep up the fight @Lord_Darkmoon , MAYBE Port will realize that's what they promised us, and hopefully they will deliver... until then, grinding and exploring is for me... actually, I won't grind anymore! So there's not a lot to do right now.

 

#Subjective

 

Pretty much agree with you there. Shroud (while boring) is playable and will most likely complete in some form.
I can't see SC completing with half of the stuff promised. I've monetarily detached my self from the project using the grey market but kept my original account for free after the fact. I'm just hoping for SQ42 and I'm good. SC has the worst flight model of any space-sim I've ever played minus Freelancer which is on my most hated games list for killing the space-sim (thanks Chris). I get my space-sim fix from playing Elite in VR now (which is quite awesome).

 

I would love for more flavor like this. For more NPCs which has a purpose beyond being a backdrop for the player. We can see the attempts of this in places like Ardoris with some NPCs going from work to the square doing taichi and then heading home to sleep.

As I see it it is not necessarily that there is too much info - it is that we don't have a customizable interface so that different types of users can create the HUD they want.

This since modern gamers demand a whole lot of information to be available. So that info needs to be accessible, without it would be a disaster for a large portion of the target audience.
However old school gamers want to hide info they see as irrelevant or breaking immersion.

The solution seems obvious - lots of widgets and info by default - BUT which the user can remove or hide if they so wish.

Case in point which is already implemented - I can set the top right corner icons to auto-hide, I can set the utility bar to auto-hide, I can turn the nameplates/health off, I can turn off names of those NPCs which I haven't spoken to etc.
From a commercial PoV I fully get why they need to be there, but as an old school gamer I set as much as I can to auto-hide so that the widgets don't show unless I point at them.

However there are plenty of widgets/info that I cannot turn off or move around which is a shame, since it gives it a half-baked impression. Although we have promises that this will come soon™.



What would have been perfect was if there were a couple of preset configurations for the HUD and if one could tie them to the Deck system.
That way I could have an RP deck which switches to my RP gear but which also changes my HUD to a minimal one.
Then I could switch back to my 'minmax' deck for combat where my HUD would switch on all the widgets giving me an edge of knowledge.
Or a 'Casual' deck with a HUD in between.
etc

Hmm, maybe I should find my old wish for this and polish it and repost...

 

Maybe you should research what it took to fund Ultima VII, convert it to modern $ then realize that using the 'not enough funding' approach is not convincing anybody why SOTA is not U7. Because the reality is it took magnitudes less money to develop U7 than SOTA. Simulation behaviors and writing do not cost significant money - look at Dwarven Forge which has been a hobby project for years and is one of the most complex simulation games. Look at any good story mod in Skryim which are also hobby projects with better story writing that SOTA.

The issue with SOTA is not lack of money - it is what they spent the money on instead. Look at Divinity Orginal Sin for a much better multiplayer RPG done in the modern ERA with better story and simulation, with DOS2 promising to be even better done in fewer years and fewer millions than SOTA.

The irony is the same people that have been saying simulations and writing comes at the end of the project so shut up until then are not even realizing we are at the end of the project - and it is their turn to shut up about others shuttting up.

 

Doesn't anyone tire of being spoon fed (no pun intended @Spoon) story lines? Life throws you lemons <cough>, I mean Developers throw you lemons, you make LEMONADE (Que @Time Lord with his timely (!) Beyoncé clip).

What I mean to say is this: your experiences and expectations are very subjective. 25 years ago this is how everyone RPG'd. While some of these ideas are nice, you are totally conflating things. You see U7 was a SINGLE-PLAYER game. Simple variables: YOU and the rest of the "world" in U7.

Here, there is not only the variable of YOU but of EVERYONE ELSE. That clearly is conflating the issue. I had this stupid debate with someone on Reddit. He was comparing the budget and time frame of Divinity: Original Sin (another Kickstarter) with Shroud of the Avatar. There is no real comparison. One is a SINGLE-PLAYER game (albeit with Co-op, but arguably that's just real people playing party members that we were used to in our RPGs), the other is an MMORPG. Each player introduces variables which CANNOT be controlled, making the MMORPG exponentially more difficult to implement.

I can make A, B, C and D "switches" in a single-player game. I can make them in an MMORPG, too, but now I have to introduce not ONE (1) player, but Players 2, 3, 4, etc., and how they each interact or affect the "switches" (and each other).

The whole point of this is, yes, lets make lemonade. Why not push for player-created content tools to allow us to make those things that you want? A living, breathing world with some semblance of consequence. And bear in mind, that consequence is really just a "switch". It's not like you could kill and NPC and rez him, or beat him half to death, then apologize, bring him 100 wood, and he liked you again.

 

Thank you for your opinion. I'll take your recommendations under advisement.

 

Thank you for continuous fighting for more U7 in Sota.

Btw when reading your post I recognized...

Where are the (Non-Enemy) NPCs who actually work in a Mine? Can they have a peaceful mine BUT its under NPC claim and if you are mining it (without paying the time restricted mining fee), you are flagged a criminal? Would that be feasible? Can we meet Laurel and Hardy again? @DarkStarr

 

Maybe you should post this on the ESO forum, which implements phasing to solve the multi-swtich multi-verse problem of story telling. The same solution which has already been implemented into SOTA adventure scenes to solve the same problem, but is rarely used (even the new outskirts do not use it). The same solution to that problem was promised months ago by Lum and RG that phasing will be solved for PC towns to expand phasing beyond adventure scenes. It is why you can see your quest givers wave at you know - nobody but you sees that - so they already manage to throw that switch for you without anyone else seeing that switch thrown.

 

NO, just no. It is not a multiplayer game in the sense that Shroud is. Saying that 5 people are in the game, playing co-op, is NOTHING like Shroud or any other complex MMORPG out there. Please stop conflating things.

 

I have made the ESO argument for phasing on these forums in the past. But that doesn't get around the point that U7 in Shroud won't be feasible for the foreseeable future. And let's be frank, although ESO does phasing well, there is no way that you can say it's up to par with U7 or other great RPGs in terms of story or in terms of a truly living-breathing world with consequence, as the OP has been fighting for.

 

This is the only thing that I think they could give us, that would allow us to overlook their 'story' and 'quests' and at least let us try stuff ourselves. Maybe I'm wrong, and they will flesh out an interesting and engaging story... time will tell. I am certain many of our players have the talent and imagination to make fascinating quests, as good or better than Port has so far... at least, they better let us try!