SOTA Is a Fishing Game

Just offering up a observation of a phenomenon I see here yet again today. SOTA is presenting itself as a fishing game. Since Catnip picked up the game, hyping fishing as a social feature has dominated the developer's communication bandwidth on these boards. Today, once again, more than half of the top dozen devposts are about fishing. It makes one ask: Why so much recurring DevPost focus on fishing instead of progress towards Episode 2? Isn't that what should be hyped instead? Catnip should appreciate that devposts here create a 'brand' for SOTA. And, importantly, consider if players may be getting the wrong message and responding with their feet. If I were a newcomer, I'd judge from devposts that SOTA is fishing focused. And maybe its causing old timers to tune out too. I've been the only person of a 300 member Ultima-themed SOTA guild online lately. The statistics seem to support the opinion that SOTA is failing to engage is core audience here on topics that originally pulled us to the game. Unless you are a fisherman. of course. Let's reduce dev focus on fishing and shift communication bandwidth on these boards to SOTA Episode 2 progress instead.

Cheers!

 

As further evidence that SOTA's forum audience is tuning out, during America East prime time on a Friday night, this thread still had zero views after 40 minutes.

 

Most have been watching the Friday stream for the past 75 mins and not browsing the forum ...

 

I counted a dozen on Twitch at the start of the livestream. Yeah, that must have accounted for everyone.

 

Great live stream too! But what were devs talking about at the start? FISH! And after all the talk about fish, after the dead space searching for a next topic, what did they come back to? Fish! Dead fish! Creating 'brands' is a thing, gang. If we highlight we're a fishing game over and over, eventually others, and maybe even the community, start to be believe it.

 

Hats off to the devs for doubling down on fishing in the livestream today by offering a Fishing Expedition Scene and more fish tropies! Even more fish! I wish I was making this stuff up. But SOTA's brand as a fishing game is only growing. More troubling though is that the team spent the rest of livestream again on stats tweaking. Haven't we tweaked stats ad infinitum already? Why is that news? Why are the devs spending crucial communication time with their community on this instead of SOTA Episode 2 progress? Because we need more fish of course!

 

@Elrond lol

 

Hmm idk

Pet Responsiveness + Tank Aggro while boring are actually something important for combat (for once lol)


Now if they actually continued working and took either pets or group mechanics to 90% completion, that would be impressive.

 

If anyone cared about face brand value someone would have replaced the game intro play page by now.

 

In Episode 3, we will no longer have to choose! The type of fish that you can catch will now be influenced by the dance moves of your friends on the shore. Players can look forward to experimenting with different dance moves to figure out which ones attract the biggest, rarest fish. Be warned though, the locals whisper rumors of a forbidden dance move that attracts an aggressive boss fish - only the bravest of adventurers will unlock this dance move (available in the store for $25,000) and fight the mightiest fish boss in the land. Pre-Order Episode 3 today!

 

waaa, waaa , waaa

 

Greetings all and @Duke Aventine
Yes there is a lot of talk about fish. @Chris has several "Fish" tanks setup that he likes to talk about. This is a personal comment about things going on in his home that he shares with us. He also talks about his daughter and Austin a lot but that is not part of the game either. One of the games bigger supporters is a "fishing" enthuses. The "Fishing" competition is an easy and all inclusive contest. But this does not mean that is all that is going on in game. New lands are being created (Sanio just finished moving and creating all the POT and their connections that are now part of Mistrendur), new skills are being created including a new tree for Bards, New recipes, new armor , new weapons, new quest, and so many others.

Checking the numbers of users at the start of the livestream seems to be a bit unfair. It is like saying you have been the only Guild member online lately without giving any details about what time and day and how long you tracked this. In my opinion it is you that is "Trolling" the waters. If you don't like fishing or what ever the current activity is go do something else. There is so much to do in SotA.

Here are the Community events from the last Update in case you are looking for something to do and only 1 of them has to do with fishing:

• Community Event: Release 78 Dance Party
• Community Event: Catnip Games Weekly Fishing Tourney
• Community Event: Summer Showdown Group Combat Event
• Community Event: The New Lys & Novia Market Lottery
• Community Event: The Snugs Harbor Sashay with DJ Darkstarr
• Community Event: 6th Annual Soldier’s Memorial Ball
• Community Event: Black Sails Saga – From the New Lands

 

And only 3 of the 7 are dance parties!

 

You've been out of touch while you are off fishing. Did you notice how many new players greeted us on the new gamer board here in the past month? None.

 

And which ones got CatNip officials participating in some shape or form? I'll give you a hint, it wasn't the Summer Showdown, which got 30+ different people to flag in the same zone, and pulled in at least the same amount of viewers, heck even my teammate was streaming our POV and he pulled 15 viewers himself!

Devs should have been there, at least one, it was one of the most well organized events, sure it was PvP and PvP is disliked by many, but it was an amazing place to give people a chance and to see how it works if you were scared of it. A dev presence would only have made it more fun.

 

I spoke to a new person yesterday in Discord actually. Since they immediately asked if the maps were broken (this is the #2 most common question new people always ask), I asked if they were new, and they actually were. I pointed them off to some places that had some good information on the game.

Hope they might stay around.

 

I'm curious, what's the #1 & #3 most common questions new people ask?

 

No.3 - How do I unlock my Steam account?

 

“Where do I find <insert recipe name here>” and “Where can I get gold”.

That is from my years of playing and always listening and talking to new players. I’m just one of those people that immediately start seeing a pattern if there is one.....