Maps are coming!!!

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by Loaffer, Aug 12, 2020.

Thread Status:
Not open for further replies.
  1. Loaffer

    Loaffer Avatar

    Messages:
    58
    Likes Received:
    57
    Trophy Points:
    8
    I got to listen to about 30 minutes of today's stream and was glad to hear the maps would becoming back real soon.

    Thank You
     
  2. Cora Cuz'avich

    Cora Cuz'avich Avatar

    Messages:
    4,648
    Likes Received:
    7,614
    Trophy Points:
    153
    Location:
    Veritas Sanctuary
    I know! Feast or famine, this place.
     
    FrostII likes this.
  3. Strider99

    Strider99 Bug Hunter

    Messages:
    87
    Likes Received:
    226
    Trophy Points:
    8
    Hell Ya baby! Awesome news. I would be willing to volunteer to help is you need someone to take screen shots and make images and stuff.
     
    FrostII likes this.
  4. CICI

    CICI Avatar

    Messages:
    368
    Likes Received:
    849
    Trophy Points:
    43
    Gender:
    Male
  5. Anpu

    Anpu Avatar

    Messages:
    7,944
    Likes Received:
    9,015
    Trophy Points:
    153
    Location:
    Hemut
    Was just watching the stream, and the maps for Mistrendur may be added. But it might be a while for all the other missing ones.

    But even if just a basic overland map for Mistrendur is added, that would actually be good. That’s a bit confusing to navigate.

    Do hope the others might get added as well (if they have figured out how to implement the map system).
     
    Aeryk, CICI and Bedawyn like this.
  6. Gorthyn

    Gorthyn Avatar

    Messages:
    617
    Likes Received:
    1,497
    Trophy Points:
    93
  7. oplek

    oplek Avatar

    Messages:
    1,238
    Likes Received:
    3,017
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Gender:
    Male
    It's mysterious to me they aren't focusing on Ep. 1 maps first. That's where new players start.
     
    arcdevil, Astirian, Gorthyn and 7 others like this.
  8. Anpu

    Anpu Avatar

    Messages:
    7,944
    Likes Received:
    9,015
    Trophy Points:
    153
    Location:
    Hemut
    “How do I make maps work” is the number 2 most asked question by new players....
     
  9. Cora Cuz'avich

    Cora Cuz'avich Avatar

    Messages:
    4,648
    Likes Received:
    7,614
    Trophy Points:
    153
    Location:
    Veritas Sanctuary
    Eh, I'm fine with them testing in ep2 areas. If everything goes well it sounds at least like it won't be too tough to get them in everywhere else fairly quickly. It almost sounded like List was indicating it could be done in a release or two when Chris asked him. (Chris got distracted in the middle of the story, so I may be wrong. It sounded like he asked List to get all the maps in next release, and List was like, "well, I think I can, maybe..." before Chris clarified that he meant all the episode 2 maps. But he interrupted himself in the middle, and told the story disjointedly, so I can't say for certain. Also, no idea if "all the episode 2 maps" means the adventure scenes only, or PoTs too.)
     
    FrostII likes this.
  10. aragorn lancermane

    aragorn lancermane Avatar

    Messages:
    47
    Likes Received:
    85
    Trophy Points:
    8
    At this point I'm happy they are fixing stuff. Not to be too facetious, how many new players are we really getting right now? I'm meaning really NEW players/accounts/customers. We need to fix what we got right now in able to have a chance to attract new players and keep them with us.
     
    Cordelayne and FrostII like this.
  11. Loaffer

    Loaffer Avatar

    Messages:
    58
    Likes Received:
    57
    Trophy Points:
    8
    AMEN, I would help also, How do we expect new people to know where they are going.
     
    FrostII likes this.
  12. Cora Cuz'avich

    Cora Cuz'avich Avatar

    Messages:
    4,648
    Likes Received:
    7,614
    Trophy Points:
    153
    Location:
    Veritas Sanctuary
    Yeah, Chris had mentioned maybe allowing people to /slew on QA in order to help get images. I think the main issue was not being bale to set it up so players would be able to turn off things like perspective and fog/mist to get good captures, and coordinating distances so map images all have the same resolution.
     
    FrostII likes this.
  13. lordbane

    lordbane Avatar

    Messages:
    13
    Likes Received:
    24
    Trophy Points:
    3
    My wife quit mostly due to the starting quests being a mess and due to the broken maps. New player retention is critical so I really hope that Episode 1 maps get priority (alongside giving some more love to the quests/journal).

    If these get some attention, I'll work on her to give the game another shot.
     
    Last edited: Aug 13, 2020
  14. Bedawyn

    Bedawyn Avatar

    Messages:
    791
    Likes Received:
    986
    Trophy Points:
    93
    How many new players can we afford to lose? I haven't been around Twitch as much this spring I was last year, but there's no lack of new players streaming the game there. Or trying to. Inevitably, every single one of them comments about the Solace Bridge Outskirts and Soltown Catacombs maps being screwed up (the player marker isn't in the right place). And then once they get beyond the starting scenes.... I've given up trying to find a way to explain to newbies why there's a map command with no actual maps in other scenes. There simply isn't a way to answer that question that doesn't make the game look bad.

    Meanwhile, I have no motivation to go back and try to finish my own Ep 1 scenes, because without a map, there's no way to tell if I've completely explored a scene or not. Without being able to look at the map and say, yes, I've been to every one of those areas, climbed every one of those ridges, there's no sense of satisfaction for finishing the area, so no point doing it.
     
    Astirian, Cordelayne, FrostII and 2 others like this.
  15. jregel

    jregel Avatar

    Messages:
    22
    Likes Received:
    61
    Trophy Points:
    3
    I've got two monitors, so play SOTA on one, with a map open on the second screen. Obviously this doesn't give me a realtime pointer showing where I am, but it's better than nothing. I agree that having map functionality is really important, especially for new players, and would feel it better that focus be put into fixing these sorts of omissions vs some of the other minor tweaks (e.g., armor stats) that most players won't actually notice.
     
  16. aragorn lancermane

    aragorn lancermane Avatar

    Messages:
    47
    Likes Received:
    85
    Trophy Points:
    8
    Not disagreeing with you- as a matter of fact I agree with the map needing to be fixed hence my stating what I said without me being to facetious. I'd rather we close the game as it is while keeping the current player base and re-release it after it gets fixed and sell it as a revisited version of SotA.

    From a managerial aspect I'd rather contain the situation from getting worse and fix it before sending it out again. However, that is a decision for the folks at Catnip to make. To be honest I'm sure that there are more than enough of us here that cringed after the reviews we got after release and even a few months after that. Why keep it open for new players to log in and start to play only to loose them after a short period of time?

    But to answer your question, unless I'm wrong, the current player base is keeping this game afloat- Maybe barely or maybe sufficiently. As cold hearted and blunt as this may sound, I say we can loose the players that just come in and leave shortly after all day long. At this time, I say we can't loose any more players that put time, money or have an investment into this game with either or both until this game is ready to be relaunched. If we are not planning to relaunch / re-advertise after making all these needed fixes/changes then we've already lost.
     
    Bedawyn likes this.
  17. lordbane

    lordbane Avatar

    Messages:
    13
    Likes Received:
    24
    Trophy Points:
    3
    If Catnip takes this position, giving up on attracting new players completely, the game will slowly bleed out and die. Current players will eventually get tired/bored and quit/move on/pass away/etc over time. The game needs to be developed in such a way that it will keep the current player base engaged while making necessary changes to appeal to new blood. If they can't or won't do both of these things then the long term future looks grim.
     
  18. Tirrag

    Tirrag Avatar

    Messages:
    853
    Likes Received:
    1,820
    Trophy Points:
    93
    Location:
    Iowa, USA
    there are ways to create minimaps using an orthographic camera and the level itself. the camera is limited by defined layers as to what it shows in the minimap so it can be setup to only show what it is supposed to. the camera can detect objects by layer or tag and show a point-of-interest icon. this all can happen on the client without needing to keep images up-to-date on a server somewhere. not sure why this has to be so complex as to need screenshots of every scene that need to be maintained. maybe they have tried this and some limitation exists i dont know but there are many ways to skin this dragon.
     
    Gia2, Astirian, Anpu and 1 other person like this.
  19. Cora Cuz'avich

    Cora Cuz'avich Avatar

    Messages:
    4,648
    Likes Received:
    7,614
    Trophy Points:
    153
    Location:
    Veritas Sanctuary
    Maybe something to do with dynamic objects, and so they want 'baked' maps?
     
  20. aragorn lancermane

    aragorn lancermane Avatar

    Messages:
    47
    Likes Received:
    85
    Trophy Points:
    8
    That is not what I'm saying. I stated the following:
    By doing what you are suggesting:
    This is what we have been doing currently or the best to our ability. The drawback to the direction we are doing is basically relying on a hope of picking up players as we go while the game is currently unappealing to most newcomers. This method will just increase and spread more negative criticism and reviews from a new playerbase. There was a recent post from a new player trying out the game and giving a very honest critique which shed SotA in a negative light in our forums. Do you think his word of mouth will encourage others to play our game? This game is already bleeding out.

    Again, this is Catnip's choice to make. Being a manager with particular "skills to fix" processes, this game is in a bad shape and is going down a road that it can't recover from. Again, once the bugs are fixed, once the new content is put in place and if it is truly great and we want to share it with the world, how would you propose we compete with an ongoing lukewarm at best to regularly negative reviews we have had received then have that compounded by curious players trying the game only to have the reviews justified?
     
    arcdevil likes this.
Thread Status:
Not open for further replies.