[POLL] How was the Pre-Alpha Release 1?

Look, all you have done is rant and rave over.... no, get this: a pre-alpha release demo. You're basically saying you didn't enjoy stress testing basic functionality and the most bare-bones, basic features. And, therefore, the game is going to suck, Quod Erat Demostratum.

You call yourself a 'true gamer'... dude, you're upset he is because your expectations aren't met on a product that isn't even finalized, that isn't even out into Beta land. Do you even listen to yourself?

Sure, if the game were out on Beta already and it were an unholy mess, you'd have all the right to complain and be outraged. But this? This is a level of ridiculous that even Monty Python would find too over the top.

And if 32 is "old man" level to you... hooo boy.

 

First rule of game development: Release dates are a guideline, not a hard rule. Any game developer worth his salt knows that.

If not, ask every developer who worked for Sierra, for Bullfrog or for Origin. You rush a game? You get a crappy game-- KOTOR II says hi. It asks if you're satisfied with 40% of its missing content.

Stop getting your panties in a knot.

I find it hilarious that eloquence is suddenly archaic. The defense of the lazy, I guess.

 

I own a physical copy of Fable and Fable II. I own Fable III on Steam. Feel free to look at the games I own on steam, username is the same as this one

I had no idea you were obligated to defend his honor. I hope he gave you a token to tie around your lance when going into combat, otherwise he's just using you.

Sweetheart, considering the level of sagacity you have displayed here, I don't think you would ever get past the stage of wondering which end of the quarterstaff is used to hit people.

There's a difference between offering good criticism, creative criticism, and being spoiled brats with a sense of entitlement and nothing constructive to say, except for a river of gripes.
A and B are not you. Not a single one of your posts has been thoughtful, collected, rational or logical. You have leaked pathos out of every pore and you haven't stopped for a moment to consider a different approach outside of whining and complaining.


Aristotle's Rhetoric. Read it. It'll do you good someday. Until then, the door is that way.

 

From the legend himself.

"There's really two games that I have shipped that shipped as less than I could have hoped or, I believe, less than I could have done: Ultima 8 and Tabula Rasa," creator Richard Garriott shared with Eurogamer.
======================================================================================================
So i know there are DIE HARDs here but when I hear your LEGEND say, " I BELIEVE I COULD HAVE DONE MORE." But he didnt, but he did SHIP the games and made money :/ I am suppose to trust SotA from R1 1st second I try it? NO! Yes maybe I judged harshly but damn I got reasons to doubt, like some have them to believe.

Lets hope everything stays positive with this game (SotA) and it wont end up like the other (TWO) games where LB (knowingly & admittedly) shipped half a** versions to all you great & loyal die hard fans of his. Even legends do shady things sometimes. Lets hope again all sides have grown and history wont repeat!

I hope for the best with SotA but I am no where near a true believer nor should I be yet.

 

A pre-alpha isn't as good as a finished game? Color me surprised! I thought all pre alphas were as good as a brand new, just released game!

Also, I'd like to point out... err well, I'll just address this other person first, and cover my comments on TES there.

Zork disagrees, my man. Video games are much more than a visual medium. You're getting hung up on that "video" part. Real gamers don't do that. We can play a game with squiggles and dots and stickmen and think it's as great.

The point is, good graphics don't make a game good all on their own. Ultima VII is as good now as it was in 1992. Time has proven that the angle Ultima VII uses is a bit eye-damaging. The characters look spastic when they walk. Doesn't matter though. Game is still great. Serpent Isle is easily one of the best games the world has ever seen.

TES: Arena is not very good anymore. It aged horribly in all departments. Daggerfall is laughable now, more or less. Daggerfall was pretty rough in the first place.

Also, Skyrim sucked. Bethesda has never really been too good at the whole RPG concept. They hit their stride with Morrowind, finally, and then tripped and fell down a few flights of steps with Oblivion and Skyrim. This is what happens when your TES series wasn't even intended to BE an RPG. It was an accident.

This is the most farfetched post this entire forum has ever had posted on it. You realize you're barking about people who have been playing CRPGs since before you or I were a thing, right? They know more about what a fantasy RPG can be than you or I ever will. I envy the people who were there for Legacy of the Ancients and Knights of Legend when they were a brand new thing.

You'd be smart to appreciate the wisdom of people who were actually there to see their D&D imaginations come to life onscreen.

You're just name dropping new games, some of which are shallow in comparison to that which is behind us. I know this for a fact, because I've completed every game you just mentioned, on top of pretty much every RPG ever released for DOS/C64. I compare/constrast these games almost every day when I talk amongst friends and coworkers. It's about all we talk about.

None of the mentioned games hold a candle to World of Xeen, Ultima VI and VII, or Wizardry 8, for example. You've also named some action RPGs, which really drives the point home that you are a bit misinformed.

Some of the mentioned games are fun and mechanically sound, but are nothing to write home about.

So there aren't enough TES fans or younger dudes who fall victim to the classic blunder of blowing off their elders and their wisdom. I'd say that is a good thing. The people who disregard their elders almost always look like a goon in the end...

and, given your modern "RPG" fanboyism, I don't think you are really fit to decide who here is posting things of value.

I'm 25. Yet, I sit in with these old people who "deride any advancement". Read: People who think outside the box and are expecting SotA to break the current mold by resurrecting the things that invented the CRPG, while adding modern excellence to them... instead of relying on eye candy and gimmicks to keep people interested.

I'm betting you, like myself, didn't play Ultima VII when it was new. I didn't play it until 2001 or so. 9 years later. Still thought it was excellent.

Who's to say you even played Ultima VII? Maybe you didn't, and just Wikipedia'd some information on it or watched a Lets Play on YouTube of it.

There are people who do that, so, I am not ruling it out here.

If that is all their goal should be, they could've just stuck with EA. It's clear you missed the entire point of SotA.

Catering to everyone is the worst idea ever. You can't cater to everyone. Anyone who thinks you can is extremely naive and needs to experience Earth a bit more.

You cater to your target audience, and shrug at the people who don't like it. Unless of course your target audience doesn't like it. That's when you've screwed up.

It sounds like you aren't part of the target audience. You COULD be, but seem too dismissive and really want your TES/Dragon Age/etc. instead.

TES Online is a thing. That might be what you're actually looking for.

I think you backed the game out of ignorance, honestly.

You even said it yourself:

If you had actually read anything or watched the actual SotA trailer, you'd know exactly what you were paying for.

What part of the 1980s Ultima montage + "Lord British is going back to his roots" did you misunderstand?

Maybe you have no clue what Lord British's roots are, because you aren't exactly well versed in Ultima games, and simply saw the eye candy of a scene jam and went "Oh yes, this will be good. It's shiny. I like it." and decided to back it?

If you'd played Ultima IV and anything after that but before VIII, you'd know exactly what you're walking into.

Dude, you're in your 20s. It's safe to assume you barely remember 1992 as anything other than Nickelodeon and spilling chocolate milk on yourself. You were <= 8 years old. I'd laugh if you're my age, because in 1992, all I was doing was playing Sega and eating Oreos. Or decapitating my sister's Barbie dolls.

I thought it was a terrible, broken mess. Way over hyped for what it actually delivered. So did a lot of other people. We're also gamers. We should know...?..?

I mean, it had the "pots on heads" thing. You can punch that dude right at the start for awhile and max stats out because he can't die and doesn't fight back...

You can break the game to where you regenerate mana faster than you spend it and never die as a result because you dual wield spells and become Gandalf basically.

Dragons flying backwards was a funny time. Also, the combat is not exactly smooth. It's quite clunky. It's trying to cater to the FPS crowd AND the fantasy RPG crowd at the same time. The end result? Both crowds get a "meh" experience.

Morrowind was better. It used D&D dice rolling. So, the FPS crowd got a "I HATE THIS!", and the fantasy RPG crowd went "hurray". See? and Morrowind was a better game...!

Skyrim is just eye candy with enough random nonsense to wander around and do that it keeps people occupied. The actual story of the game is about as interesting as the back of a cracker box. It's a step back in the right direction compared to Oblivion, but it still can't even touch the 3rd game in it's own series.


In 20 years, nobody will care about Skyrim. People will still care about Ultima VII.

also, just for the sake of curiosity:

Why do you need to state this on a forum for a video game? That's like going to an Iron Maiden concert and telling everyone you're a metalhead.

You're at Iron Maiden. We know.


I should point out though, usually if you have to state things like that, it's because your actual argument is a bit weak, and you aren't sure of yourself.

Our money went to the budget to pay the team to work. That's money well spent, thus far. The hysterics and excitement are coming from people who are pretty well versed in RG's work and know a good thing in the works when they see it.

This is debatable. especially that whole "A LOT" part.

On the contrary, there is a lot of criticism coming from Ultima fans. Myself included.

See, that's the beauty of this thing. We're here to steer the game as it's being made, instead of having to send hate mail after the game is released.

So instead of starting at Ultima 1, getting hate mail, moving on to Ultima 2, getting more hate mail, 3, etc. etc., we are all here testing things, trying things, suggesting things, and helping to get the game just right.

It's a pretty big deal. This kind of thing has never really been done before.

Leave it to Richard Garriott to do that.

If you knew what you were talking about instead of just googling information to win an argument online, you'd know that Ultima VIII wasn't RG's fault.

Same goes for TR. There is a lot more to it than a simple google+copy paste....

Nice try, though!

 

Know what I was talking about? That was a QUOTE from RG himself :/

He said he shipped the games like that, he said those words. So is he lying about that? Or do you know more about that situation then RG himself?

I didn't make it up or create it. Anyone can find this stuff. Don't be so defensive. Your boyhood hero is gonna be ok.

On a side note though man, NICE SPEECH, that was solid!

 

I'm not being defensive, I'm just pointing out the inaccuracy of what you said. It's common knowledge that EA ruined Ultima VIII. Same thing happened with Ultima IX.

Welcome to a fairly clueless publisher imposing things on a creative team. You're no longer in full control. Yes, RG take's responsibility for it, but it's pretty obvious what happened to Ultima VIII. Do you think it was coincidence that U8 was the first EA related Ultima, and was also the first disaster of an Ultima?

Which again, is how we ended up where we are right now (It's also how Wasteland 2 became a thing). No more EA. This is just RG doing what he wants.

 

So then it should be a GREAT game then since he is in FULL control. You have nothing to worry or be defensive about, you got the power of knowledge

And ty for the knowledge drop on me aswell. Glad to know it was not RG that failed in making those games even though he admits it was him very noble.
I get what you are saying, and appreciate the explanation

 

I was ignoring this mud slinging contest but this just made me laugh. Seriously? Have you not noted how much progress they've made "from scratch" in the last 6 months? And it's not like development ends in 9 months either. Yeesh compare to most MMO's soft launches SotA will probably be the most polished MMO launch of the year. If it even comes out in 2014. If the release needs to be pushed back it will be pushed back. You think you are the only member of the community who will cry out 'it's not ready' if it is in fact not come September? We aren't even halfway through development and you are complaining it's too under developed... Duh. Seriously. Thoughtless posts like this are why companies never let the player base see the games this early in development. Ignoring the fact we have quite literally the most seasoned veterans in the industry working on this title... You aren't getting 'backlash' from 'fanbois' for your lack of faith here. You are being told to relax by people who simply know that what we've been shown so far is actually impressively far along for this point in the games development cycle.

 

I cast a 4. Really fantastic release. only reason it wasnt a 5 is that some things that should have been caught in dev phase/pre-pre-alpha, were not. Chests being opened ad able to walk far away and still place items in them, the breadcrumb words not working. I didnt play around with housing too much... which I know is the biggest component they are testing.

Now I have to go around and document all the bread crumb words cause the screen shot I sent on the one example had a misspelling, so they may have ignored the fact that I said on many of the other NPCs this is happening.

Anyway... overall, enjoyable... I cant wait for the combat enabled testing!!!!

 

Is it just me or has this all gone way off topic and has become a slanging match on a kids playground?

 

I played confusing strategy and D&D games when I wasn't even in Kindergarten yet as a result of my uncle. I definitely did not process it as what it really was, much like you probably didn't really comprehend Ultima VII. You were 5 years old, yeah?

So you were born in what, 1987? I've been playing games since I was 3 as well. So have tons of people. Big deal. 3 year olds can't process Ultima correctly. You're likely having more of a fondness for it with relation to your brother than from actually experiencing a game. You also seem more concerned with asserting your gamer-status than anything else.

Given this statement, it sounds like you don't really delve into the stuff that came out before you were coherent, which is a shame. You've missed out on Ultima IV, V, and VI probably? I started with 3, myself. The NES version of it, when I was like 7 or 8. Followed that up with getting the Ultima Collection for PC along with UO, and took it from there.

Also, you *are* my age. You'd be wise to listen to the wisdom of the older-people who got to experience the glory days of CRPGs that tapered off right as both you and I were finally able to actually understand what was going on in them.

Do you even read this forum? I know you can't read the Dev+ forum, so, I can't help you there.

Whatever makes you feel good about missing the point of SotA. Though, your "play" of it doesn't really count for much if you missed the point of the game due to being 5 years old.

It's not false advertising if you didn't even look at the advertisement.

Sorry. I'll stop, I didn't even notice how massive my post was. It was 5 or 6 am and I was in the zone.

 

2 Words

INVERSE MOUSE

Did I miss that somewhere?

 

This is not an accurate comparison and you're talking apples to oranges. They're both fruit, but that's about it. A large amount of the money from those other games you mentioned was spent on marketing, advertising and things like voice acting. SotA does not have that expense, at least not anywhere near the amount as those titles. Also, Garriott is partially funding the game, so he is channeling some of his fortune into it.

You're missing out! I think you'd have a much greater appreciation of this upcoming game if you were to check out at least one of the Ultima's. If retro gaming is not your thing, I'd recommend picking up a copy of Dungeon Siege (very inexpensive) and getting the free download of the Ultima V: Warriors of Destiny remake, Lazarus. If you can stand to play something a bit more dated than that, Ultima VII: The Black Gate on the Exult engine is excellent and highly recommended!

 

Not only that a huge bulk of the money for Skyrim's development was spent on the engine, which is another huge expense SotA doesn't have. I believe they have private investors as well, last I looked into it they had about 14-16 million in actual funding. LB put in more money then the whole crowdfunding community combined (I seem to remember he put 7 million down before the KS started and I think has put down more since). But they are hoping for closer to 18-20 million to do everything they wanted to do by launch, so they are still short on that and a whole mess of features have been pushed back to episode 2 as a result. So the 83 million dollar budget for Skyrim to our 3 mil in crowdfunding is just an utterly ridiculous basis for comparison.

 

Let's return to the discussion of the pre-alpha: How do you think the conversation system can be improved? While I like the idea as it stands right now, the presence of multiple players talking to one NPC can lead to potential chat spam. Unless NPC interaction is being handled like 'whispers' on a chatroom and can only be seen by the player in question?

 

How can you even know how good the game will be, based almost entirely on graphics and one village in pre-Alpha? I can't begin to imagine this will be a poor game, based on the track record of previous games. Maybe folks should calm down their fears before jumping to conclusions.

Really? What about Minecraft? Now there we're talking early 1990s graphics, yet look how obsessed a huge population is with that game. By contrast, the pre-Alpha has shown us that the graphics are quite outstanding and they aren't even finished by far.

When a person buys a sequel to the Elder Scrolls, they expect a great game. What is wrong with anticipating the same quality we came to know from Richard's previous games? He should be praised. That's what many of us are here for, the expectation that he will produce another great game.

I have played every single one of those games, sometimes more than once, with the exception of Dark Souls (who would want to play that horrible design in gameplay!?). I'm willing to be that most people here, including our dear Richard, has also played all of those. What's your point? Playing games is a far cry different than creating and designing them.

What "reality" would that be? No never mind, some people just want to argue or cast aspersions. Why are you here? You can't dictate and demand developers create a game you want simply because you plunked down $25 to back it. That's not even one hour of wages for some of the developers. Sometimes age and wisdom has merit, that they can see an awful lot more than a self-serving demand.

This is flaming, and a personal opinion I don't agree with. I suggest calming down and making constructive comments.

Ya. Old people. Can't trust them. 8D

Do you have a crystal ball? Have you seen this is what they want - to not sell their game? =D

We can't even agree in a forum, what makes you think anything in this world would ever be everything to everyone? We would have no war in the world if so. =D If you expect absolute perfection, according to your laundry list, that's an order no human could possibly fulfill. Sometimes maturity can see this.

At no point in time have I seen them promoting this game under anything false. Everything they have done, and are considering, is in the original Kickstarter appeal. Read it carefully and see if they have failed. I mean, you know, it is only pre-Alpha. Not the full blown game. Calming down and being realistic are required here.

 

Failed? Maybe you should look at the history of sales and the number of years that Ultima (the whole series, but even just UO) series have been successful. I played the game for 10 years. It couldn't have survived that long with just one person wanting to play it. 8D

 

That's probably the real crux of the issue.

 

$600 million in sales does not validate that assertion. 8D