Longtime Ultima player fundamentally disappointed

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by tomprogers, Oct 7, 2018.

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  1. Chrystoph Reis

    Chrystoph Reis Avatar

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    YAS! that and the offline games, Kings Quest, Police Quest etc. I could not remember the name of the network. You just made me smile this morning! :D
     
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  2. Cordelayne

    Cordelayne Bug Hunter

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    TSN/INN was so much fun. It is amazing to think that back in 1994 such an online "world" existed via dial-up modems. Granted it was ridiculously expensive and my parents were always yelling at me for driving up the bill, but it was awesome.

    King's Quest was my favorite series. Admittedly, I never played past KQVI because I felt its epicness just could never be topped. Plus, the cartoonish graphics of KQVII just looked silly to me even though I am told it is a great game.

    Back in those days my two favorite gaming companies were Sierra On-Line and of course Origin Systems. Times of Lore is a vastly underappreciated RPG from that era that I loved outside of the Ultimas. It was Chris Robert's foray into the genre and he killed it! :D
     
  3. Justice Owen

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    That is a bit of a stretch. Maybe you mean in terms of it's sum parts however from a mechanics and concept break down :

    • Combat - Global Cooldown foundation, overlayed heavily with a system mixed from parts of popular and some lesser known titles. Most notably would be Elder Scrolls Online (then insert every other MMORPG ever..)
    • NPCs - Leashing, hasted return to spawn point, generic respawn timer[unchanged by an external influence or factors], rudimentary proximity based aggression system, single factor threat determination[ most damage output=highest enmity], typical archtypes of melee = tank or rogue, ranged = caster or damage dealer[even going as far as saying the aforementioned do less damage but survive longer compared to their more penetrable yet higher damage dealing counterparts]
    • World travel - Overworld is not new, even in MMORPGs and instanced zones are not either
    • Grouping - Definitely nothing new or abstract here
    • Communication systems and economy - Standard text chat, Looking for group module, Bazaar/player trading - all standard stuff, even if the way it's done

    Though yes agreed it is not enough like some of it's predecessors or competitors. There's some amazing features and aspects in other titles old and current, that would make Shroud even better than it is.
     
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  4. Zapatos80

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    For me, one thing that makes SotA really different from other MMOs is that it feels like an actual world in which things happen, not a generic hand-held experience, engineered from A to Z, like WoW. The devs also respect our intelligence. The insane degree of customization, both in character and in skills, beautifully balanced by the deck/soft-cap system (not perfect balance, of course, but no MMO ever is). The crafting system is rich and deep, player interactions are important, the world feels alive with player housing and decorations. If you're into RP'ing and/or socializing, then SotA definitely offers depth you will find nowhere else on the market, not even close. That's why I love SotA and why I find it different than everything else. Now, is it Ultima, online or off? Obviously not. However, having played both UO and the old series, you can definitely feel the dev philosophy shine through. In the end, it offers many things other MMOs don't and can be more of a niche game. Is it the game for you? Well, you'll know after playing it for a while :)
     
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  5. Xee

    Xee Bug Hunter

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    You are comparing Ultima single player series to an MMO of course it is not going to be the same at all. The game is an MMO with single play ability, not a Single player game with multiplayer. this is an issue with what people misread in the initial Kickstart . Its a Sandbox in that it offers pretty much everything to do (adventure, make anything crafting, complete housing system, fishing, PVP etc) yes there are many games that offer some of this but not all in as much detail. The mmo story is rather good if you take the time to do it as well all the side quests which give more background on what is going on with each faction.
     
  6. Astirian

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    Oh dear.
     
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  7. Xee

    Xee Bug Hunter

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    sorry if I sounded like a jerk there, just over 2 years of seeing complaints from others that this is not ultima V ... gets my forked tongue caught in a vice lol. We had a view of what we though this would be and I agree with you that if you were expecting UV then you didnt get what you wanted. On the other side though SOTA does have alot more to offer and I do think in time it will become an amazing game. I think in my view the only real weakness it has is the quest system in its current form is too buggy but we all know they are remaking that whole system in the near future which I hope they allow us to reset one more time after they have it all redone so we can enjoy things all over again :)
     
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  8. Astirian

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    Yeah, I can agree with you there, it has loads of promise for sure. As an exercise, I just logged into classic UO (via UO Forever) and classic WoW (via Vanilla WoW) and they feel super dated compared to SotA, rose tinted glasses are a wonderful thing. The brain does adapt though and funnily enough, after a while, you forget that sensation. I enjoyed LotRO for a while and gave Guild Wars 2 a shot a few times. Dunno what it is about GW2 but I felt like I had to complete maps the whole time and I was under some sort of box ticking pressure or something. Lovely game in terms of presentation and everything, like, really well presented. Looks like WoW 2 but yeah... I dunno, it just doesn't have the freedom and sense of place SotA has. I played ESO because I enjoy the Tamriel setting but it hasn't stuck either.

    I'm definitely expecting SotA to pull up its socks SP wise though. They bit off a mighty piece of cake and I'm confident they can achieve this vaunted MMO/SP hybrid. SP needs a few licks of paint though by the looks of things.
     
  9. Jimmy Cliff

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    when does the spiritual successor to Below the Root come out?
     
  10. Black Tortoise

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    it may come as a shock to most of the world, but developers do need to earn income for their work


    but i understand these feelings. im sure it sucks to have seen it go so far from resembling any kind of true single player rpg in the ultima vein.
     
  11. Black Tortoise

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    do you use decks?

    you know between fully dynamic decks, tactically aligning your deck slots with specific glyphs, and some of the focus skills, you can spam some of your favorite skills over and over again, right?

    i think the cooldowns on the glyphs help encourage people to explore the deck system more deeply.
     
  12. Arkah EMPstrike

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    The lore is one of my favorite things about shroud. Given you have to read books and talk to the various townsfolk and stuff in game to get a good hand on it. Not everyone likes to dig up lore on thier own these days.

    The ammount of puzzles and mysteries to solve in game leave me craving more of that kinda stuff to stumble upon, which wasnt a thing in rift, terra, WoW, eve, etc. UO was the only other game i played i can recall stumbling on these sorts of puzzles.

    Player run establishments also on a scale ive only ever seen in UO.

    Can literally go anywhere in the game and try to do anything (just made a new character that ran through tier 4 zones at level 5 just for the challenge, was totally doable)

    OP has played dozens of other games with all this stuff in it simultaneously, makes me feel kinda bad that i didnt find any of those other games with this stuff goin on. Shroud deffinately needs more dynamic content tho.
     
    Last edited: Oct 13, 2018
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  13. redfish

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    It was supposed to be both as much as possible, not one or the other; that's one reason LB was pitching the term "Selective Mulitplayer", because he felt calling it either an MMO or a SP game would be mislabeling it. On the single player side, he was particularly concerned that the single player fans would be turned off by it being labeled an MMO and he didn't want them to be turned off, because he believed the game would be fun when played single-player and would be comparable to the single-player Ultimas.

    Also, in a sense, a single player game with multiplayer is what UO was intended to be initially. Lord British described that the idea for UO was created when he was sitting around and talking about U7 and how much fun it would be to bring friends into your party in U7 and play the game together. He described this as "Multima", or Multiplayer Ultima, and during Kickstarter he talked about how UO fell short in a lot of ways, and how he still wanted to create a better "Multima" game, and Shroud would be it.

    So, anyway, there have always been partisans among the backers who have tried to pull the game in exclusionary directions. Some SP fans wanted to minimize the MP aspects, some MP fans wanted to minimize the SP aspects. Some PvPers wanted to minimize the PvE aspects, some PvEers wanted to minimize the PvP aspects. Some solo players wanted to minimize the social aspects, some social players wanted to minimize the solo aspects. Etc. This was all unfortunate imo, caused a lot of division on the forums, and unfortunately imo the devs in response just have been overly conservative in making decisions, not wanting to stir the pot, or create controversy, especially as they were running behind schedule with limited money, and that has definitely influenced the game's development over time and brought it closer to theme park MMOs out there IMO.
     
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  14. Arkah EMPstrike

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    backer feedback is a huge reason the game is like it is today
     
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  15. Justice Owen

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    I am a little confused as to whether Tomprogers is saying Shourd is not like UO in that there's not enough content, or the content is not high quality.
    At the moment I actually find there to be enough content, however the mechanics (as I have criticized prior) need a lot of work. And it is due to that, that much of the content is either over quick or was frustrating to do; which is unfortunate as now and again there's fleeting moments of joy and brilliance, oft replaced by something negative.

    Imagine, through his already murder red tinted lens about MMORPGs, that he agrees with the above, as well as sees it as big on fluff (player housing, dye colors, cosmetics etc), a generic crafting system, exceptionally limited group activity and no real risk or challenge ; combined with a combat system that -let's be truthful, isn't exactly revolutionary.

    It's not unreasonable to conclude that all he sees is in his jaded view of MMORPGs(entirely the fault of bad game after bad game in the industry) is yet another product with backwards priorities.

    Of course he's going to come out of the blocks with mostly negative things to say and a disdain for it's direction. Which further makes it difficult for him to appreciate it's good qualities.


    The only comfort and advisement I could suggest would be accept that Shroud is not UO and that whatever was said to promote the game as such, should never have been taken as gospel. We as veteran consumers should know that by now. Elder Scrolls Online has to be the award winning example of this.
    People wanted TES with net code so they could get beers and seven friends and go romp all over Skyrim. What they got was a game with influence by TES and not actually TES online. It is a shallow generic MMORPGthat was riding the IP and coattails of the franchise.

    I wouldn't fault Richard or the team for using Ultima as stepping stone, just like I will never fault Brad McQuaid for using EverQuest and Vanguard as a platform for Pantheon. It's business; and it's the consumers responsibility to either support it - whether that means by complying, or by boycotting and suggesting alternatives.
    It doesn't mean though however that Tomprogers is wrong, rather it indicates that sadly his vision for the project didn't align with others' whom came before him.

    I tell you what though, if the login servers go down again (it's Sunday), he'll probably quit.
     
    Last edited: Oct 14, 2018
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  16. Sir_Hemlock

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    Yep.
     
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  17. Nevyn Waldail

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    Anyone for Terris? I think that was my first mmo.
     
  18. redfish

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    I think that's maybe dressing it up a bit.

    Don't get me wrong, I think the devs have definitely incorporated a lot of player feedback over the years, but if they were really just going by what the majority of backers liked, I think we would have a totally different game today. So for instance, after Kickstarter, there were a lot more single-player fans involved in the community and that has dropped off a bit since for a bunch of different reasons, as the devs have also marketed it as an MMO and drawn in traditional MMO players; which is why they now feel confident pushing it further into traditional MMO territory.

    What I was describing more as influence the game direction was forum politics, which is a whole other beast entirely.
     
  19. curtwjen

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    I too am a long time Ultima player and fan - by far my favorite series. I started with III, was hooked and caught up by playing I and II. From there I played IV through IX. I even attended a private preview of IX by Richard during CES - 1998 or something (?). I remember speaking with him during pretty much every CES in the 90's.

    Anyway, I'm probably guilty of reading the kickstarter for SOTA with rose colored glasses hoping that the "full" and "rich" single player experience would be an Ultima. But like many here I've been disappointed. I've started and stopped playing a bunch of times wanting so much to get hooked.

    I've tried to identify in simple terms what the issue is for me and it comes down to this...density...in this case, lack there of. Or another way to look at it, the ratio of important / quest giving NPC's to the rest of the world coupled with the physical terrain.

    All too often I come to a new town in SOTA hoping for something new and it can take minutes to just to get to the heart of the town to discover that there are no "important" NPC's to be found. When I did get a quest it's off to the over world map to another location to talk to one NPC to continue the quest and then onto yet another town from there. The one place I had a good time was the SolTown catacombs when there was a quest given in the catacombs and solved in the catacombs.

    This issue has weighed on my mind so much recently that I put all the other game I'm playing to the same test. I just finished Elex from PB (loved the Gothic series) and it's obvious that there's a lot going on when it comes to "what's important per square foot". Same for "Seven: The Long Days Gone", Witcher, even Assassins Creed. The quest systems keeps you engaged - again, "what's important per square foot".

    Maybe this will get better as time rolls on as the Dev team disembarks from the old Ultima line of "you can bake you're own bread" - that by itself would have never made the lineage of Ultima what it is.
     
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  20. Anpu

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    Go play Ultima IV again, and note the size of the landmass and the amount of quest NPC’s.

    If anything, this is very close to a reimagined Ultima IV....
     
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