My overall thoughts and impressions (since you asked)

First thought is WOW. I have played released games that have crashed on me constantly. I have played all day today and not a single crash. To me, that says a LOT when you consider this is pre-alpha with 11 months to go. Major kudos to the team.

I didn't play around much with the crafting since the things I will be doing weren't available yet (cooking and tailoring). But I did figure out how to make a board just to get something in my recipe book (took me two days to find out I HAD a recipe book). I think the book is a good idea. That way I don't have to make a real notebook of recipes.

Placing of housing decorations is fun and will be quite interesting once we get all the stuff to play with. I chose a small one-room place since that is the first house I will be getting (probably 6-10 months after launch, paid for with in-game gold). I wanted to see how it would look to have a one room place. Lots of candles and wall scones completed the look inside. I've always been a painting collector so that was nice to be able to fill my walls with art.




Very cozy. I filled my backyard with all the various crafting stations to see how that would all fit. It worked. I gathered up the collectible plants and lined my front fence with them. Plenty of torches and braziers to give lots of light at night. Again, very homey. It was awesome to be able to see my decorations through the windows from the outside!



Basically, I am amazed at how nice the game looks. I know there will be much more to play around with next pre-alpha test. I am hoping for more crafting and the buy/sell cycles to see how long it's going to take me to save up that gold for a house!

I plan to buy Tracy's book so I can read all the background. I've read most of it here on the website but I think the back story will help help make sense of things the NPCs say.

SoTA is definitely a throw back to our beloved Ultimas. I found myself making notes on a notepad when an NPC would mention something I wanted to go explore. I'm curious if I'll have to do that when the game is finished or if there will be a way to make an in-game journal (not the quest driven journals like in Skyrim - but an opened ended text based in-game journal I can make notes of people I talked to, who they wanted me to go see and where, etc).

I hate to make suggestions because I know this is still in it's infancy. I know there will be more hair colors (looking for salt/pepper long hair), a wonderful selection of clothes to make and wear, curiosity about the gardening system and if I have to wait to have a house before I can garden, REAL curious about magic and how that's going to work or if I'm gonna have to keep a blade handy when I go gather raw materials for things I want to make.

Thanks again for the opportunity to play around in our new world. I'll be on pins and needles waiting for the next go round.

 

Some nice positive feedback here! My thoughts are very similar

 

Evening

I have been also, enjoying the game with hours of playing and not one crash. Housing Decor is super fun. I was able to walk to the edge of the zone, and found the volcano to be hollow
I cant wait for R3, just hope they give us longer to test, next time around.

 

um, tailoring is available

 

My only regret about Release 2 is that work has cut into so much game time.

Stability for me has been great as well with the only really bothersome issue being my own fault (jumping off the edge of the world). Also, the improvement graphics quality was IMMEDIATELY noticeable upon logging in (I have mine cranked up as high as the game will let me) and aside from a few edges, everything is nice and crisp.

I haven't really focused on house decor since that was one of the few things to do in R1, I spent most of my time in R1 doing that. This time it's more running around and crafting with a little bit of NPC dialogue here and there.

I know we only have "bits and pieces" of the whole, but already it's feeling like "home" and what UO could have evolved into had the developers and players been more willing to move forward technologically.

The crafting is still a bit rough around the edges, but I think once we get more direction in the process, it will end up being a fun system. I can't wait to start trying out resource gathering.

Let's see... 9 months or so into the SotA experience (from announcement to Kickstarter to now) and so far, the only statement that has given me pause has been the one about Portalarium selling ingame currency. Beyond that, the openness of the Team, the look and feel of the game, everything has me in a VERY positive mood about the project.

 

Very nice reply Dermott.

Anyone know how much of the game is actually made from the team. Textures,lighting,music,models, etc.

Or is most of it public domain, from with in the Unity Engine?

We see Pen of the Avatar, but nothing in the way of 3D models etc..


~Jason

 

I actually just saw a link on the main SoTA page to known available recipes. I didn't see any CLOTHING on that list but leather armor. Since our playtime has been extended another day, I might just have to pop back in, and see what I can make!

 

So far, the only Tailoring recipes are leather and cloth armors, no basic clothing from what I have seen. I'm sure that will be added to in future releases though. Also will be helpful when they add in the Dyeing process so that people can REALLY being to customize. I hope that Dyeing will be a much more WIDE spectrum of color than has been seen in other games. I hope they can at least match or exceed UO in that regard.

 

Speaking of tailoring, SoTA posted a link to the Sota wiki site. I followed their instructions to make a leather chest piece and ended up with one of those dorky looking leather caps. Is there another site that's come up with recipes? I kinda suck at stuff like this on my own.

 

So far I love the game! you can tell its definitely an Ultima game!! and the music takes me back to Ultima 7 which in my book is the best thing since sliced bread!
So much so that I pledged up to citizen
Top marks so far !!

 

Have you tried http://sotawiki.net/sota/Category:Textiles#

Its quite new and not user friendly yet but a good source of info

 

The Leather Chest Piece is 2x leather straps and 4x hardened leather (with scissors as the Tool). Just checked it and it worked for me. The Helm is 2x hardened leather.

 

I know. When I tried to make the 2 leather straps is when I ended up with the cap. Obviously being a tailor won't be my main source of income in SoTA. *laughs*

 

Ahh I see what happened... you had 2x hardened leather on the table which makes the cap instead of a 1x hardened leather which makes the Strap.

Right now you have to make each thing one at a time. There's not the support for "batch processing" like there is in UO (or other games) as of yet. Hopefully in the future they will add this so that you can process larger stacks of raw material.

 

Big differences between R1 and R2. A few thoughts and observations:
I suspect that jumping from castle heights and such will have reprocussions in later releases
Footprint sounds dont seem to correspond to surface types.
When i played friday night the night cycle seemed to end pretty quicly and it was quite bright.
The town lanterns/lamps seem to stay on when the night cycle ends
Rugs can easily be mistakenly moved after being placed when moving the cursor over it when moving your character
Opening crates still sound like explosions
Overall things were much smoother and im sure refinements will continue...jouney onward!

 

I'm hoping we have a feel of UO in the beginning days. Not that I was ever a PKer myself, but nothing beat that level of exhilaration of venturing out of town beyond unguarded territories. I personally think a system similar to EVE's security level, with risk and reward for venturing farther out into the great unknown, would work best.