Old-New Player Return

So I picked this game up 18mo ago and played for a few months but gave up from frustration. The game ran poorly even on my relatively high-end hardware and I found myself constantly "lost" not sure where to go for quests, what to do in quests, how to progress properly, how to get my archer built up correctly, etc. Has the game developed a lot over this time? I really would be interested in returning if it has. Also, if things have changed a lot over this time, should I start a new character to get a fresh feel for things? Thanks in advance for any info.

 

Hello @tachyon. As someone whose been here since 2013 consistently I would say a tremendous amount of things have been added and improved upon with work on the game always happening. How much of that you will notice of it depends on the type of player you are. Like what's most important to you.

One thing imo that improved the game tremendously was inclusion of the teleport to zone scrolls. They mark each location you go to and work a bit like a rune book where as you can click on them (if not encumbered) and see locations you've been to and even details about them when mousing over location on the scroll then holding the control key down. It even memorizes mines and will take you right in.

We have universe chat now which just became free, a mail system, looking for group (alt f), free row and village lot deed from questing,tameable wyverns, and so much more to mention.

I'd say jump on in and give it a try. Make sure you have more than 8gbs of ram. The game is a hog. We love our stuff so at least have 12-16 gb recommended. I'm majoria in game if I can help.

 

The games performance has improved significantly over the last year plus. If you are still having problems, you might have to investigate the issue.

This is a true sandbox in most senses of that term. It's not a seemless world as you already know, but that doesn't detract from the sandbox nature. Personally, I'm not really all into stories in MMO's. I'm in it for the ability to pick and choose my style of play as well as for the community. As for a build, you can literally build anything you want. Stick with archery, or dump the XP from there into your XP pool and try something else you might like.

I would say give it a try again to see if you like the style of gameplay. Ultimately, yours is the best opinion of whether you'll like the game.

EDIT: I'm running a 512GB SSD (linked 2 x 256GB) on PCI and also have 64GB of RAM, so my results may differ than most in terms of performance (i.e., I have no performance issues).

 

Thank you both for your responses, will definitely give it a shot again. Since a lot is changed I think I will start off with a fresh new character to re-learn everything.

Thats big for me, that sounds amazing. The inclusion of runes and rune books in UO was always one of my favorite aspects, haven't played an MMO to date with a feature like that.

When I previously played I had the game on an SSD with sustained R/W over 500mb/s and was using a Ryzen 7 1700, 16gb @ 2400mhz and a GTX 1080ti. I've seen upgraded to a R9 3900X and 16gb @3266mhz. Hopefully that will help.

Here's my final question: How much work has been put into questing? I tend to play solo 90% of the time and quests are my way of enjoying the game. The issue I ran into over and over was broken quests. Constantly stuck because of bugged out or glitched quests. Has work been put into getting the questing system working correctly?

 

Many quests which have been stuck earlier are now playable. Some still lead to a stuck. At least the main-quests are playable and you can finish the ep.1.main-quest.

 

Plus it has been announced there will be some major Quest and Looking for Group work done this year. Check out the 2020 vision for all the proposed improvements. Do all these things always happen? Probably not, but I think we'll see the major stuff. Seems like the development team has more realistic goals and we've seen more improvements than ever before since Catnip Games took over. https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/forum/index.php?threads/shroud-2020-vision.161221/

 

While most is fixed, the system is the same. So you either need to be good with lots of digging to figure out where to go and what to do, or fine with using a guide when needed.

This one has the entire story spoiled, but in individual spoiler tags, so if you hit a spot where you are totally stuck you can look at just that one hint and not ruin everything else:

https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/f...rse-guide-to-the-episode-1-main-quest.144686/

Edit: It doesn't actually give any of the story, it spoils the "what to say to who and where they are" part. Which is usually what trips us up.

 

Welcome back!