What kind of game is SOTA and what will it become?

There are loads of threads on QOL and time sinks. Most are not well structured questions to answer, ambiguous, and often somewhat loaded. However, lets go with it. So what is a QOL 'improvement'? what is a time-sink? and does SOTA have them and is this good or bad for the game?

- The time it takes to travel from A to B in SOTA isn't the real time it would take to travel this distance in the RW, its a simulation of the time it takes to travel to create the impression of distance and travel for immersion purposes.
- The time it takes to make a plate chest piece isn't the real time it would take to manufacture it in the RW, its a simulation of the time it takes to make it to give the impression of making it to achieve satisfaction for immersion purposes.

The time allocated to all main activities is an abstract. If you make this time really long then you have a very tedious real life sim. Make it really short, or zero, and you have an instant gratification web game, like Candy Crush.

One of the challenges and fascinations for me with SOTA right now is that due to its passion for player inclusive development combined with an absolute reliance on player retention and satisfaction is that it has become by accident (or maybe by design? (@Lord British , @DarkStarr ? ) a grand social experiment..

Reading these forums I see the proof of the generational change in social attitudes we all discuss in our daily lives. The original backers (largely ex UO, around Richard Garriott's age and incidentally my age), are either gone or else are diluted in their influence close to insignificance by an influx of new players, mainly younger and often not having played UO. New players and retention thereof is of course good and essential, but it is causing a schism in the Forums and in the debate of the development path of the game itself.

I have little doubt that the 50's 60's & 70's babies here on the forums (including the Developers) original vision for SOTA is closer to the original backers vision than the new players vision and indeed that the game is getting further away from this vision each release. How much and how far only the Devs can say. As SOTA is a commercial product and Portalarium are a business, they have little choice but to follow the breadcrumbs. This doesn't mean SOTA can't be a success or a good game, but the direction of the changes take SOTA further away from being a conventional RPG/MMO and closer to what younger people expect; instant gratification in short bursts. Older players have to ask, are the days of world simulations almost over? I suggest that once we're gone, then they are.

I come from a big family and my wife from an even bigger one We have a Lawyer (qualified but not yet practising), an aircraft design engineer(!), a helicopter technician in the Navy, two teachers a student at Uni studying digital art & design and several others. All are hard working, competent, capable nice people. These kids however are most surely an evolution of the species, maybe a different species. lets call them 'Homo Digital Aetatis' humans of the digital age.

My lawyer niece, a charming binary mind, is disturbed by the fact that she can't visualise life before mobile phones. She continually asks us how we managed to meet each other and socialise and deal with changes to plans without cell phones and the Internet. They all live their lives in a social media virtual reality. Two of my nephews, who eat for a living, constantly complain when it takes more than 5 minutes for hot food to arrive on their doorstep after they have pressed a button on their phones.
A button on a hand held device who's processing power would give early Apollo mission computers a run for their money.

So who's left here reading? Most, if not all, of my nieces and nephews would have stopped reading this lengthy post by around the second paragraph. They wouldn't relate to it, it isn't 'fun' and don't have the patience or the attention spans. They would however be generally amused by another bonkers monologue from their Uncle Steevo

All of them, in the immortal words of Freddie Mercury, truly hold to the philosophy of 'I want it all and I want it now'.

..So I would say yes, SOTA has time sinks, yes, they are a good thing if it is considered an RPG/MMO world simulation, maybe these abstract times could be a wee bit shorter. The answer is no if it is to be a Candy Crush style instant gratification web game. Which is it, or rather, which will it be?

 

The way SotA is designed with no caps, time consuming crafting and resource gathering with no end game/finish in sight is not attractive to a younger generation that have grown up with instant gratification. This effects their game playing as most will have been bought up on console games or even pc games with the much higher rate of publication where the cycle is play for a duration and then onto the next game as always something new to attract their attention.

It was a brave move designing the game this way, a design i appreciate and enjoy as i prefer something i can sink teeth into and will enjoy for many years but i don't think it suits the much bigger potential player base of younger players. Is there any 13-25 year old playing the game? If so a very small percentage of the population i expect. This game is likely one with the oldest average age in existence and even though those people were the best able demographic to fund the crowdfunding, unfortunately they aren't the best demographic to expand the game or to keep it progressing as they are limited in number and likely most who still play games and have the time to invest in this type of design are already here.

Part of the answer imo is to put a end goal line in sight and when reached have content that players create and also this attract new players as they feel they CAN catch up. For this all would be needed is a cap on skill points. I know we have a relative soft cap but still its a soft cap and i and im sure many others just keep on grinding away as they don't want to be left behind generally. Once people reach that position or have less inclination to grind away to keep others in sight player created content like the dungeons coming in, faction/guild warfare in now the barely needed control points is the best method to attract a younger population. Its also much more thoughtful and tactical, encourages teamwork and helps to add to a proper economy if people aren't self sufficient, skill caps will help manage this. Personally id reimburse everyone with their XP, they can allocate then to whatever skills they want to a cap limit, the rest can be banked for expansions ( which then attract players back as they can raise skills again) or allocated to other characters on account...

Also making areas of the game easier and not time consuming will help immensely to attract the younger/time restricted gamer. Rune books are the best fast travel in existence and they were done in the first mmo, amazing.....they also give players/vendors out in the wilds a chance to attract players and will actually encourage exploration as once found a person can BM and then return to at a later time. There can only be xx amount of players in the prime spots and any not in them or new players feeling they cant get into the closed bubble or to much effort to try would likely then move onto another game, there's plenty out there to call them.

^^ In short...We need to attract a different mentality gamer than what the game was initially designed for...to expand and survive...imo.

 

Me and my friends play ranging from age 22 to 29 and there is a lot more young people that enjoy these games then you think, I plan to get more people into it but some more things need to happen or they will just leave fast.

 

what kind of changes, and how fast Jay?

 

Either the old guard is lacking in sufficient quantity to support what was destined to be a niche title or they failed to draw in enough of them so that the original vision of the game could be maintained with viability.

They appear to have chosen to sacrifice their vision in lieu of that of profit potential, or things have gotten to the point where they have no choice but to appeal to a wider audience in an effort to endure.

Regardless, they now walk a perilous path, as many of those that came for that original vision did so by the route of substantial financial investment and they are increasingly getting less of what they presumably bought into.

Unless those clamouring for change are bringing along with a similar willingness to invest, Portalarium may come to find they have less butter for their bread than before no matter how many new players arrive.

 

Hi, my name is Hluill and I am an MMO addict...

I've played and am playing a lot of different MMOs right now.

Overall, I agree with the "Candy-Crush" assessment.

But, I'd have to say that a well-designed game makes time-sinks. like crafting and travel, seem like features. Maybe it takes days to make a finished piece of equipment, but each step should be more than just a progress bar. If I want to watch progress bars then I can update some applications...

In another thread someone mentioned Vanguard's crafting system. Not a lot of flash, but it was an activity other than watching a progress bar. In EQ2, players have to do stuff while watching the progress bar. I remember the days when character's were killed by not paying attention while crafting...

Maybe this game should accept its niche status.

 

As of this post, I am still 42 years old.

I played UO. Back then... I didn't have a big deal career, I didn't own a home, no wife, no child, VERY few responsibilities. I could sit down and play the game for 8 to 10 hours a day. Time sinks meant little to me, because I had time.

NOW? I don't have time. I'm an executive, I have a wife (second one, actually... divorce sucks.), a home, cars, a daughter and so much more going on in my life. I don't mind the crafting time sink, I don't mind the other time sinks related to character growth. I was slightly annoyed by how long it took to get into scenes that I needed to, because I had to cross the overland map, go through a Control Point... oh, now the city I am headed to is under siege...

There's more of my 30 to 45 minutes of playtime chewed up with loading screens.

Even those of us who are OLD school gamers, from way back, wanted/needed some of these traveling time sinks adjusted.

 

Hey you left out us 50's babies!! Age discrimination!!!

 

Older than you... One less wife than you... Two more children than you... 30+ year and counting career that enables me to support my family, allow my wife the luxury of following her calling and being a full-time mother, and still be able to indulge in a couple of expensive hobbies... Likely an Older School Gamer... from way back... don't like the some of the changes that've been made with this release... So, please don't include me in your blanket statement.

 

Please don't take everything so personally, I wasn't meaning to imply that ALL of us in this age range are in this boat.

Accounting can be a busy business, but I'm generally working all of the time, even on vacation.

Executive positions are different, it pushes me to have more hobbies, like the car club and home brewing... How does that have anything to do with my job? Well... it often puts me in front of buyers, engineers, product development types and other executives or management types from businesses that HAS proven to land us new customers over the years. I'm still a gamer, but I've never found a customer through this hobby, I'd LOVE to find customers through gaming, it just hasn't happened... yet.

So, while it's great you have all that spare time available to you... we don't all live on the same page, in the same book.

The current time sink removals aren't going to "ruin" the game. It might make the game more attractive to people like some of the Millenials I know, who love gaming, but because of the conditions of starting jobs vs. the cost of living, often live two or three to an apartment and still work two jobs. So, they focus on games they can get into and out of in 30 to 45 minutes and feel like they've accomplished something.

We don't live in the boundless age of free time, anymore and there's studies proving this.

http://apps.prsa.org/SearchResults/...y_have_less_free_time_study_says#.W4l-qc5KiUk

The reality of the changing way of life in this country necessitates these kind of changes to leisure activities, if Portalarium fails to take these changes into account, how long would this be sustainable?

 

I do feel that, in general, people seem to be busier now than before.

Many of my friends I grew up with would love to be able to sit down in front of a desktop computer and play games like SotA. But they simply do not have the time.

As a result, they only play mobile games. They can play anytime they have a few minutes to spare.

If SotA was modified to be a mobile-friendly game there would easily be a lot more players...

 

SotA is and never should be simplified down that far to be a mobile game. There's just to much complexity to this game for that. Heck... I don't even believe that UO could... or should be made into something mobile. The kinds of RPG/MMO's that work on Mobile have WAY to many instant gratification sparkly events that feed the feeling of accomplishment.

That's not Shroud of the Avatar.

 

This is 100 percent correct. This is the fundamental issue behind this kind of feedback from newer players.

They want to consume the game ASAP and onto the next and we can't cater to these players as they won't stick around anyway.

No Man's Sky had similar reaction from players as SoTA got. They overdescribed the game and perhaps made stuff up a bit early on, launched it too early, expectations were Sky High, and the game got an almost scary backlash of hate that still continues even as it gets tempered. I see a similar redemption path for SoTa as well, but it might be true that the younger set, who don't seem to be able to discern quality in either movies, government or video games, might not care or appreciate it.

I mean just spend 2 minutes looking at kickstarter comments and then wonder to yourself about the entitlement generation - you can give them one of the nicest physical packages with amazing cloth map and other cool things surpassing the quality of the original boxes and as one Kickstarter person says "I threw it in the trash", the items were "flimsy", I thought the box would be "bigger" and other total nonsense.

I blame my generation for our absolute failure in parenting for this.

 

and so you should.

 

Oh I agree. I would not accept a dumb downed, or watered down version of SotA on mobile devices either. I wouldn’t want to play that.

There are MMOs right now on the mobile platform that are “full-featured” MMO’s ... not watered down versions. Feature-rich versions that basically do everything that the desktop client game can do, but just adapted to a playable mobile interface/client.

 

I like No Man's Sky too... Always did... It's relaxing.
That's what I play games for... to Relax.

 

Spot on. I reject the idea that the differences in opinion about the QoL changes is an age related gap. I am 49 and have been playing MMOs for 20 years. I have a demanding senior level job that demands a lot of my time and energy, a family to take care of etc.

I have no problem with and in fact want progression to involve a good deal of time investment and intelligent play, but I want that time to be 'productive'. I am in no way looking for "instant candy crush gratification". I enjoy being immersed in a game world and that's a large part of why I play. I accept I have less time to play now than I once did and am fine with the fact that it will take me longer to advance than some 20 something student who can play all day. I tend to be logged on all evening but be AFK for at least half of it while I do RL stuff.

For example loading screens are neither productive nor immersive (more the opposite). Going on a mining trip from my house involved sitting through 6 loading screens (8 if I got caught by a random encounter I couldn't avoid despite running way round it) - most of which were just to run a short distance to the next loading screen. That's not immersive - that's a pointless annoying waste of my time. The QoL changes have reduced the loading screens on that trip to 3

 

"The new generation just doesn't get it" Said by every preceding generation ever.

 

Sometimes I would get an hour of free time and sign on to play. When I realized by the time I got my food, buffs and ran accross the map it was pointless and I would sign off.