Game sold as Successor to UO vs Sold on its own merit

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by ShurTugal, Oct 3, 2018.

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  1. ShurTugal

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    The question I have, and I am curious to hear every ones feedback, Is it a mistake for port to try to sell shroud of the avatar as the spiritual successor to Ultima Online?? Would they have greater success selling the game on its merits alone??? Full disclosure, I never played UO, any of them. I heard about shroud via Markeedragon and I bought in at final wipe. since then I have been playing shroud strictly based on the game itself and what it has to offer me not that it may or may not be the successor or some such to another game I never played. As such I must say I like the game. I don't always like some of the choices or directions the devs go but I think since I am not always, In my mind, trying to compare it to another game I never played than I tend to give the devs more leeway and tend to be more accepting and understanding of the choices the devs have to make. I find so many times that people are always complaining about the game and saying how UO did it this way or UO did it that way etc etc so I got to thinking. Are the devs making a mistake trying to link the two together. would they have greater success selling the game on its own merits and what it has to offer and give it its own legs to move forwards. bigger question.... Are they making a mistake trying to market to UO players in general (I am assuming they are because its always successor this and successor that) and would they have greater success just marketing to players in general who like this type of MMO game???? Thanks for your feedback... :) :)
     
  2. Rufus D`Asperdi

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    Common misconception. It was never sold as the Successor to Ultima Online... It was sold as the Spiritual Successor to the Ultima Series... some baker's dozen of titles, of which Ultima Online was One.
     
    Last edited: Oct 4, 2018
  3. ShurTugal

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    Fair point but the question is still valid. You have this "shining city on the hill" the Ultima stuff and now your building a new city and trying to compare the two. Rather I wonder if the better approach would have be "ya we creating this other game and it was great and amazing but now we are creating this new game. Yes there are some similarities to the old one but hay this is a new game with great content...... Give us a try." this hole successor approach doesn't seem to be working imo. :) :)
     
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  4. Apostle

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    People seem to forget that this game is a full stand alone game for $39.99. Both single player and multi. Which is an incredibly hard thing to do with an RPG.
    I feel a lot of us here are because of UO, but there has to be a few here just because of Richard Garriott and the Ultima Series.
    I personally think they made the hard release date of Episode 1 about six months too early. But I can't really blame Portalarium, this is a different era of commercial online gaming and they bust their ass off, monthly to give us more content that continues to flush the world out. And when I say 'world's, I mean it. There are spoons and forks and tea sets and books and swords and staves, etc. All actual tangible items. The beauty of SotA is the small details that we take for granted. All these useless items are left out of your standard RPG. Novia is ten times the world that Nirn is, or Tamriel for the laymen, or Daggefall/Skyrim/Morrowind for the lay-lay-laymen. The Elder Scrolls is probably the closest RPGs that did their best to try. I don't even have to mention Norrath or Telon, or Aerynth, Midgard/Albion/Sylvan, Auberean, Istaria, and certainly not Azeroth. All mmo's first, and RPG's second. That's a small detail people forget when they come to SotA.
    Im really excited for Episode Two, not just for end game content, but for every single thing they add to "create worlds"
    They don't need to sell this game as a standard mmo, it's not. It's an RPG. If anything, market it as a stand alone single player RPG. It has far more to offer than Dark Souls, or The Witcher or Pillars of Eternity or any recent triple A RPG series.
     
  5. Warrior B'Patrick

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    Greetings all. I think when they mention it is a spiritual successor to Ultima you have to keep in mind the core of the game. Truth, Love, and Courage are the initial elements of all the Ultima games. Ultima IV even had the 3 question to decide you fate (Play style). The rest of the game is built around that. Everything else can change and because of copyright laws should change. If you are an previous Ultima player you will recognize similar elements if you are not just enjoy the game.
     
  6. Barugon

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    Spiritual successor, not successor.
     
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  7. ShurTugal

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    Tomato, tomoto.... I think everyone gets the point I am getting across. :) :)
     
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  8. Jason_M

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    I have a huge amount of nostalgia for Ultima Online. I tried to play Ultima 4 once, but it was simply before my time. I couldn't acclimate to the way things once were.

    With that said, I don't have rose colored glasses for UO. It was a problematic beast, but I played it again and again for more than a decade because it was what it was and I loved it despite its problems.

    So I guess that makes me the ideal target of that marketing - I longed for a game that carried on the world but improvwd upon the mechanics. Diverging from UO is a good thing, in my opinion, as long as the spirit and the culture persists.

    By the way, OP, are you the Drizzt youtuber who begins every video with "Shroud of the Avatar, spiritual successor to Ultima Online"?
     
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  9. ErikRulez

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    I don't think the problem of jumping to the conclusion that SOTA is the successor to UO is the dev's fault. I think it is the players who wanted so badly for a UO sequel that they are hearing their own version of what was actually said. For my part, I never played UO either. I played many of the earlier ultima titles and from my perspective, SOTA is the spiritual successor of the series. They took some of the elements from the games before and woven them into this new world. As for if marketing it that way was a bad idea, I think any game developer who is proud of what they have accomplished would point to their earlier work for support. EA may own the Ultima brand, but Lord British is a brand to himself in some respects and I can't blame him for using that the same way any company would use brand recognition for marketing. I think it worked for the most part as there are many early supporters here that played some/all of his previous games. That being said, there are a large number of vocal UO players/former players here in the forums that want SOTA to be a sequel to that game. It is not what was promised, but they do have the right to give their feedback to direct the game like the rest of us. I don't think UO players were specifically targeted, they're just the ones coming from the most recent Ultima game, perhaps with less nostalgia and more detail oriented opinions.
     
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  10. Rufus D`Asperdi

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    [​IMG]
     
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  11. Chemical

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    For myself I registered back in May 2013 and followed it for a bit hoping it would have more of a Ultima Online feel however I did not get that vibe early on and lost interest very quickly. I Personally felt like it wasnt a game for someone looking for an immersive mmorpg and seemed more like sims.

    I eventually ended up trying out on the free trial and was completely lost saw so many bugs and eventually got my character stuck and couldn't move and force closed out of the game and ranted about it with my bro.

    When it got released I ended up coming back and playing to give it a chance and to explore more. Having played it and loving some of the Ultima Series and loving UO I feel this game has enormous potential if they would adopt many more aspects of UO and give it a more mmo feel.

    So I am really here hoping for a UO feel. Though at this point for me personally episode 2 is what is going to make it or break it for me.
     
  12. Rufus D`Asperdi

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    It's more than Toe-may-toe, Toe-mah-toe, because many people see "Spiritual Successor" and make up their own definition of what that might mean, and then hold the development team accountable to Their Individual Vision rather than look at what's been built objectively and See the Myriad Ways that what's been built meets the requirement.

    I cite as examples the posts immediately above and below this one.
     
    Last edited: Oct 4, 2018
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  13. Vero

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    How this felt for me when I started;

    So little background info: I was 'still' playing UO summer of 2016. (2000-2016, OSI in the beginning, Freeshards till the end lol) when i heared about Shroud. I was at that time still playing UO daily.
    The moment i stepped into Shroud i was hooked. I had a great UO Vibe from what i was seeing. (this felt this way for ME)

    my 1st iron node i mined: UO!
    my 1st encounter with a troll: UO!

    I was seeing, feeling and hearing Ultima the whole time.

    So in UO i was hammering stuff with mostly archery, so i started in Shroud with Achery aswel. The hours went by and i was seeing and feeling UO vibes all the time.

    My gametime in UO was very very similar as Shroud is right now for me. I like to kill stuff mostly; specifically i love fighting dragons. I was grinding dragons in UO. Am grinding dragons in SOTA.

    If you ask me: Shroud is the spiritual successor for Ultima Online for me 100%

    :)






    BTW: last Sunday installed UO again cus of reasons you all know i think :p. Something with 'could not play shroud!' Ended up de-installing UO at the end of the night. Conclusion for me: UO had it's days and will stay as a awesome memory :p
     
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  14. Gorthyn

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    Possibly it's not going as well as expected due to the issues the game has rather than any Spiritual Successor misconceptions. I would suggest the problems run much deeper than that.
     
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  15. Brass Knuckles

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    Hard to say the only reason why I supported it was because of UO, I would not have touched it as a non sequal title.

    Though it has some stuff that reminds me of UO they did deliver a difrent game, and its not terrible. For me I woulda been happier with UO 2.0 oh well im still playing this and I expect ill be here a while longer.
     
  16. Astirian

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    This is a very interesting question! Prepare for Wall of Words. :)

    So, preamble; my background is: massive fan of Ultima 8 (I was 12 going on 13 when it released) then Ultima 7 fan somewhat retro-actively, I liked Ultima 9 for the immersion but realized the limitation of 3D graphic capabilities of 1999, it usually made worlds feel small, probably could have scoped better set in Pagan. Played UO for maybe 2 years on and off, enough to buy a boat and a wooden cabin (yey). The main city in the game was bustling (Britain [Ardoris?] ), some other cities sometimes felt like ghost towns. NO quests in UO which is a design decision I understand.

    Historical context as I understand it (I'm a frikkin' Padawan when it comes to the Ultima I-VI guys!):

    U7 was a masterpiece of modern RPG design, it informed a whole generation of game designers.
    UO pre-dated EverQuest and World of Warcraft, it was the start of modern MMOs as we know them (barring some stuff like Meridian59 and MUDs etc...) and one hell of an online experience.

    Video games were way more of a niche back then than they are now. That's just a product of technology and generational change. If you ask me, games got on the average Joe's radar with World of Warcraft in 2004 (mainly due to its sheer amount of polish and content), went ballistic in 2007 with Call of Duty and positively nuclear in 2011 with Skyrim, just around the time being a nerd became cool. 2012 saw the movie The Avengers, a massive surge of indie devs (why hello there Unity) and the apex of Mobile fever (in a Gold Rush where people made MILLIONS) and now here we are, 6 years later (in a time I'd probably call... The Age of Noisy Noisiness).

    Now, crunching some numbers I just made up in my own head, the skew between non-Ultima fans versus newcomers (let's call them 'Normals' from here on out 'cos it's hilarious) should be fairly large because A) People like making babies; and B) Technology advances fast but is tempered by; C) There's all of the things everywhere now, it's harder to rise above the great and dangerous Sea of Mediocrity because the bar has been lowered substantially and strong curators (as financially profiting entities) aren't a thing yet (they will be, trust me).

    Whether the original fans evangelize or whine or whether they don't probably won't affect things greatly in the long run. It's like the Stream of Time, you can affect it a bit but it always returns to its course. Every agonist has his antagonist, when the balance is off between the two, there's definitely an issue to be addressed. Port has demonstrated that they listen to fans but also that they have prioritized wrongly also in the past. It's a balanced thing. The fact is, they're making the game they're going to make, it's their game! One which I personally think feels like a modern UO (YMMV).

    Being a long-term fan I do, however, feel like they need to paddle the oars faster on the single-player narrative side of the boat a lot more to stop the boat going in circles. And I don't mean the content, I mean the presentation and grandeur (or spectacle @Lord British) of the content. Incidentally I found Britannia Manor in-game recently and was filled with the wonder, history and potential of further greatness of this series (the Ultima III cover art in particular was very touching). For comparison, take your favourite game desginer, now imagine you found the guy's house in-game and could poke around in it.

    Shroud is not trying to be an MMO (at least in the modern Genre Defined sense*), UO invented the term! But it is multiplayer in a big way. It's a place I can hang out in, a place with a long real-life history I care deeply about.
    *(Which ironically, is why I would love to see the NPC dialogue box updated, they don't have yellow quest icons over NPC heads thankfully so why have an MMO dialogue box?)

    So tldr; while the people and long-term fans who backed the game deserve what they were sold as investors in an idea and continuation of a legend of gaming they care deeply about, it's great to hear that Normals enjoy it too. In fact bringing on more Normals is critical to the long-term success of a new would-be series. Advertising to both should be fine, assuming that mass market appeal (as hard as that is to put a number on) will come anyway as the game continues to improve.

    Extra technical marketing stuff (I am probably inventing things here, buyer beware): If you knew that there were 100 potential buyers and 25 of those were prior fans. You'd probably do 75% general appeal marketing and 25% marketing to your pre-existing series fans anyway. It's all in knowing the numbers. Which is hard.

    And lastly, I'm no crusty old 'get off my lawn' gamer. I own a PC, a PS4, a PS3, a PS2, A Wii U, a Switch, a 3DS (+ a Nintendo DS and Wii I don't know where they are), a PSP too... I'm a WoW veteran, I've finished Baldur's Gate, The Witcher and Skyrim and many others (outliers like Two Worlds II). I play Fallout 4, No Man's Sky and Assassin's Creed: Origins. I've played all the Battlefields. I sometimes play PUBG, just finished Subnautica, I've finished most of the Castlevanias and I love Zelda, the Batman games on PlayStation. I've played U-Boat sims, WWII strategy games, WWII aircraft simulation games, hardcore Russian SU-27 jet fighter simulators, Scribblenauts and Brain Training ("Blue! … Bloo!").

    And out of all this stuff (which is a fraction), SotA right now is my crack.
     
  17. Rufus D`Asperdi

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    It's less valid, when built on a false premise, and merely serves to perpetuate the misconception.

    But, to address your argument... What would be the practical application of coming to the conclusion "Yes, it would likely have been better to sell the game on its own merits rather than link it to the Ultima Series?"
    Coming to that conclusion, if that were the ultimate outcome of the debate, would serve no purpose as it cannot change the past.

    While it might be an interesting thought exercise, it serves no practical purpose and only serves to perpetuate useless arguments... arguments based on a false premise.
     
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  18. Arkah EMPstrike

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    This games past is the ultima universe (the “lost” portion of it) and its heavily hinted at and blatantly told thats thecase at one point.

    It has a morality system just like the old ultimas, the map is an old ultima map, and you access scenes from the overworld like the earlier ultimas.

    Its both spiritually and mechanically like ultima.

    But its a successor in the same sense that final fantasy 14 is the successor to final fantasy 2
     
  19. Nib

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    People who never played UO just don't seem to understand what that game did for online gaming.
     
  20. Floors

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    I consider it an Ultima game. I think it could be more Ultima like - hopefully we get better written quests in Part 2. But the general story I like, even if it doesnt make any sense.

    Should it be marketed as such ? Dont see why not. It should be marketed period.
     
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