How to make SotA great (please read carefully before posting)

Not sure if anyone remembers me, but I was a very early supporter of the game. I put in a good chump of change and dedicated a lot of time in this community at the beginning. Some might even be aware I put a good amount of personal time and effort working with Portalarium to build a Community Asset Hub which would have facilitated allowing community members to contribute assets for use in the game. Unfortunately this was never released for a variety of reasons, but I did everything I could to assist and tried to maintain a lot of optimism for the game.

I was pointed to this thread and really wanted to provide feedback on my personal experience. I agree a lot with Bubonic's comments. I pledged because Ultima was a large part of my life. I really wanted a new Ultima. I was never into UO. I played it in Alpha/Beta but griefing got so bad in the Beta I could never justify a monthly fee for it. Bioware's NWN still holds as the greatest multiplayer RPG experience I have ever had, and I hoped the billed Selective Multiplayer would allow the experiences I had in NWN which was mainly due to smaller communities of like minded people. Unfortunately the vision I had for Selective Multiplayer never ended up coming to pass and was more of a mechanic to manage server instances.

My interest in the game pretty much went downhill when the decision was made to go to a use based system. I hoped this would not kill it but it made the game pretty much what I expected. Character advancement is pretty boring for me now as I just fight some stuff to get XP and then I have to just repetitively spam skills I want to level. This is just boring, repetitive and generally uninteresting to me. Similarly this followed along most other aspects of the game giving me very little motivation to play. Loot? Nothing special or interesting I can't get through crafting. Crafting is a grind of collecting a bunch of materials and digging through a complicated process to put them altogether. When I was crafting I would spend hours gather then realize at the table I was missing one thing and couldn't make anything. A few times of that I just gave up.

Basically I login in, move something in my house so its active then can't find any motivation to do anything else because I find most stuff that might be productive frustrating. So far my experience with the Story content has just been fetch quest which I thought was going to be specifically avoided. Not to mention very few quests I finish actually close out, so I am always confused of what I am supposed to do next.

I did have fun when I had friends playing since RP wise we could "make up" our own content and reasons to leave the house, but most of those have left and even sold off their accounts or items for the same reasons.

In the end, really this game left me behind and tossed to the cutting room floor most of what I wanted out of the promises made during Kickstarter. I tried to provide feedback as the game was being developer, but there were elements in this community that fought against the things I and most single player users wanted. Their goal seemed to be to make this UO2 and avoid any SP content at all. In the end the game was pushed to more in that direction and became more of an MMO. Before I left it was too much of an emotional drain trying to voice my opinion only to be drowned out by attacks or random bitter noise. The Us vs Them was just too much. From the beginning I worried that these clashing elements of the community would lead to an echo chamber, and thus create a game that had already sold all its copies to its target audience before it was released. I hope I am wrong, but it doesn't seem to bubble up anywhere outside of my Ultima circles who are all current/previous backers.

I am glad there are people that are enjoying the game. I donated because LB has given me a lot of enjoyment of the years, and although I really wanted an Ultima like game I could enjoy, I more wanted him to have the opportunity to build the game he wanted, which I hope he did. I don't plan on leaving and will continue to keep my house active. I hope the game eventually gets the polish and features to where I can consider it a game, but for now - to me - its just a incomplete jumble of interactive elements. I am not sure anything can be done to fix the game for me; especially without significant funding and rework. Helpful or not I figured I would respond to the call for those out of favor in game since it was such a big part of my life for so long.

I do look forward to the physical good which look great, and my money was well spent getting to talk with the developers and see the sausage get made. This made the financial hit worth it even without the game working out for me. It was truly surreal having access to legends that were much responsible for my enjoyment as a child, and I hope the game gets some success and continues to improve.

 

Welcome back @Umbrae !!

I feel exactly the same about this game, happy to have funded it, this is not the game for me... and it seems it's not for a huge part of the original backers and a much bigger number of gamers all around the world.

Question is still if Devs are happy with this or they really want to change/fix this issue or listen only to the decreasing number of active players. Time will tell

Also, great thread @Corv thank you and thanks the current moderators to allow probably the best thread in years.

 

I just want to add as someone who has seen the whole arc of the history of development, and as someone who joined the KS for the solo RPG possibilities, this is a real and sad part of the history of the community. It was not just Umbrae.

Some tried to crossover into the MMO, considering that was where all the attnetion went, and some of us make the transition more or less well.

I will say it again, like a broken record. A clearer vision going forward is needed so whole segments of backers for future Episodes don't feel like they got left behind in development.

 

I believe you lost something in translation there Jaanelle.. he's referring to 'color commentary' like a 'colorful comment'... not the ACTUAL color or text. Basically he's asking people to stick to facts.. and leave the colorful commentaries out to help when dealing with bugs.

I always take a step back after reading the forums to try to take into account any possible translation/misunderstandings.

 

I believe that these are valid observations, if you look closely you can see the effect of this in almost every aspect of the game. Although i do not agree with the generalization of 'devs' which implies all developers, i would be more comfortable if that were edited to read 'some devs', 'the majority of devs', or 'the devs in this game.'

 

To clarify what idaniod said if you are not familiar with the term, "Color commentary" / "colorful language" is a polite way of saying profanity or rude comments.

I've followed development since the KS. I've never felt that they've acted inappropriately unprofessional. I'm sure I could have missed somethings, but I can tell from comments that sometimes their humor is lost in translation. EA would lock the devs in a room and you would never see them. SotA has been considerably more open than even other kickstarters I've backed. I've enjoyed following along and getting to know them.

 

Upon further reflection, I believe you all are correct regarding "color commentary" . I'm just gonna take a break from the forum until I've collected myself. Thanks for listening, and my apologies for the kerfluffle.

 

As someone who isn't a backer I just wanted to say that there does seem to be alot of work they still need to do, me and my brother joke around saying that it's like we are still in beta but besides its flaws atleast for me this has been the only game in a extremely long time that has held my attention so in my books they must be doing something right to some degree.

 

Looking at the Q2 vs Q3 top priorities, User Acquisition is no longer a priority and Physical Goods is presumably complete, with Systems Polish and Bug Fixing added. The other 8 priorities are essentially the same.

So it appears to be the same game in scope and direction moving forward, but now with half the headcount. They've got an even bigger job ahead of them now, so best of luck to them!

 

I'm thinking they need to throw these bad boys onto the add-on store. Raise some extra $$$ for the suggested changes in this thread.

 

I wouldn't buy it.

 

Honestly I am getting tired of the game. There is so much wasted time doing crap in the updates like lighting and quest addons when you haven't fixed the quests themselves in the first place. Things like why do the NPC's still show you need to talk to them even after you have just talked to them, there is no tracking mechanism so you have no idea if you need to go back to them to carry on the quest line or not and the quests themselves are broken and you don't have any idea what to do next!

And again I reverberate the NEED for weapons that actually mean something for characters such as Mage's it is so stupid that they have to hit or as you call it bludgeon their attackers with wands and then end up having to spend time and recourses repairing them when they should be using staves and or daggers that have the same or better abilities then wands.

Also why do we have to do so much running when we enter a town such as Fortus End just to actually get to the town itself, half the time you end up leaving the town again before you find the NPC's in the town you need to talk to just because there is so much space that has nothing other than forest or desert before you actually get to the town. Then the maps that are supposed to be in the corner opened with the "M" key. These are junk, half the time you are running over water with an arrow that is supposed to be where you are and pointing the direction you are going. Usually I don't run backwards like the arrow is showing I am going and the arrow doesn't even really show the real spot or direction that the character is going.

Honestly if you were a new character and seen all of these plus so many more I could count , WOULD YOU really join this game?

 

It would be nice to have the questing system fixed... can't wait to see what they've got planned.

You know you don't have to hit creatures with your wand or staff, right? Just turn off 'auto attack' and your character will only physically attack someone when you double click them and leave you free to use your magic!

 

Completely agree here. I've been testing offline with brand new characters each release, hoping for issues like this to get fixed. But the whole experience is still so buggy and unpolished

 

Glad to see this was unlocked.

 

I agree I don't have to hit the mob's with my wand but all of a sudden I cannot move using my mouse. It is a trade off that should not happen.

 

exactly, same here i walk allot with the mouse. turning off auto attack shuts down walking with the mouse, quite irritating

 

A skill cap is not really needed. if a person wishes to sink their exp into a skill, then that is their Right/choice to do so. imposing a skill cap would anger mroe people than it would please,. besides, i believe @Chris Has/Is Implenting Zones That are skill capped.

 

Bringing about skill caps might well attract alot more players which is exactly what the game desperately needs...