Beginner's Questions

Majoria, thank you for your answer too

I have niw read, and was surprised to learn, that Episode 2 is not already available, but is yet to be rolled out. Will the locations from Episode 1 disappear / be changed or, and this is what I interpret from the little I could find, introduced as 'new, additional areas' in the existing world?

 

Episode 2 is the equivalent of an Expansion for other games, simply an addition to current content.

 

There's a new area called Misrendur that has all the episode 2 scenes. You access it by using the galleons on the overworld.

 

Thank you Violet Ronso and Barugon for your answers. It's good to know that the world won't be wiped, otherwise I probably wouldn't have re-startet at all.

In the meantime, however, I read more and more things that I don't understand... No more Island of Storms in the beginning? No more 'interview' with the Oracle, no three different paths / starting areas? And above all... no more intro and no more Arabella? (I know, sounds stupid, but I thought the idea of being pulled into the world of SOTA as 'yourself' and the whole 'initial staging' around it was really cool and special). Well... I guess a lot has really happened since I left...

Guess, I keep my 'old Avatar' then? Hm...

 

Episode 2 content, is currently in early access and under construction. New scenes will continue to be released over time. Can see more of the current scenes here: https://sotawiki.net/sota/Mistrendur

 

The reason for this change was specifically explained here, by Darkstarr:

• We have been doing long term data analysis of incoming new players. We realized that many new players quit the game during Isle of Storms. We believe this is because the content in Isle of Storms is not representative of the best parts of the game as a whole. We have begun an iterative process to improve the new player experience, with a focus on ensuring that the new player experience is representative of the best parts of the game as a whole.

Also, several times, in the (now) Livestreams from Catnip Games (That are on the Friday after a release on a Thursday, every month), Chris has discussed this. What I recall from this was basically, their metrics were showing that when they changed the start of the game to The Battle of Solace Bridge, new players would actually stay in the game longer, than if they were in the original Isle of Storms starting area. WHY that specifically IS, nobody knows. Something along the lines of, new players would only spend a few minutes in the Isle of Storms, and then actually quit the game.

For now, The Avatar *suddenly* finds themselves in the world of New Britannia.... and arrive in The Battle of Solace Bridge...

That said, you are not alone in not liking how we actually arrive in the new world of New Britannia. Many of us just really, really dislike that change (myself included). But the facts ARE, new players currently stay longer in the game, when arriving into The Battle of Solace Bridge scene. So we are currently stuck there. Eventually some other option to start the game, how you wish, could be an eventual option.

Also, feel free to go to one of the monthly livestreams and ask about that specific topic. The Catnip Games team is always open and happy to answer questions (when they can, of course).

 

@Andarkon We have many new areas to explore even if not all quests are in for episode too some are. Castle Atos is indeed an interesting place to visit. In Wizards Rest we do Have a teleport hub to that area. It has 2 pools for buffs as well as a daily cooking quest and perhaps more. Also I do go to the Well of Aldur quite often to do those dailies even though I can't kill the creatures my character can run through with little problem if I'm careful the first part that is then I can't go further but one day I will. I love to run through and take a peek when ever possible. Here is a new player info sheet I created one time if it helps you.

For one Episode 2 is getting implemented and Castle Atos is a great place to go to get buffs and explore. You can visit this scene without having Episode 2. It is a great meeting place. Anyway But Episode 2 is not all in yet. Quest lines are not in but some dailies can be found through out. It is much higher level but you are safe in Castle Atos. Still many areas to run into and I always do Well of Aldur daily crystal quests. Some old areas were revamped. Anyway exploring is the thing to do and welcome back. Here is a copy of a features of the game info I made for a new person. Also to say there are So many new recipes, new items etc to name. Anyway welcome back.
I'm majoria in game. I accept all friends requests and am happy to answer questions anytime. Here are some basics I can think of:

1-You get 2 free property deeds now. Row deed from doing captain Kinseys quests in Solace Bridge outskirts. A village deed you get from completing the story. These deeds are taxed and only place able in player owned towns. Row lots have a default house and you can craft or buy different homes to change the house later.

2-We have a mail system. You can send almost anything by mail . To mail something do 'send mail' then player name, then drag items, type subject which can be a long subject or write on blank paper, flyers, or books to send a longer note to someone. You can also craft mailboxes for your house.

3-Don't forget to talk to the oracle in an Oracle building placed in most player towns you enter into or most npc towns. Click on test and say yes or no to the question they ask. If you haven't done any quests yet your answers could be yes or no. Read and see if you have an affinity to a certain virtue or hold it in disdain which is a no answer. You get 500 gold a day and xp for doing this. If you answer wrong you have to wait until the next day.

4- Also don't forget to talk to the town criers. They give you 250 gold for first visit to a town (player towns also). In many places that is. I have found a few who don't. Plus visiting new locations will get them marked on your teleport to zone scroll as explained below.

5-Our modes of travel are varied. Such as teleportals players have put down for moving around in a town easier and npcs towns also have the sign posts, recall scrolls, and most importantly teleport to zone scrolls. Teleport to zone scrolls are my favorite. These have a variety of utility. So it is useful to drag the scrolls to your non combat bar but if not they still work the same way by clicking on 'use'. Unlike the other scrolls they do not immediately take you anywhere. They show you places you have visited. If you visited them before zone scrolls were implemented they won't show those and you have to re-visit to get locations marked. So they can not be used If unencumbered. So when unencumbered a list of locations you have previously visited will come up. You can cursor over the locations and press the control key to see location descriptions of what is in the scene. You can also filter the list by various things by typing in the filter area. These scrolls will mark all locations you have visited.

6-You can click the y key to create a deck. and the k key looks at your skills. Our skill system draws from a pool of experience seen at the bottom of the skills window, tabbed by adventure skills, and producer skills which are crafting, harvesting etc. The x key is the default to change decks you are using but also an icon can show in the lower right corner. It shows if you have set an alternate deck to switch between. When clicking y to create a deck you can click the blue gear to modify and drag spells to your hot bar for that deck don't forget to click use current equipment and you can have a musical instrument on at all times they weigh only 1 pound. If you see someone has placed music you can click on it and your instrument will already be ready & available to hear it.

7- We do have a music system (speaking of instruments). We have the ability to play in groups or solo. We also have the ability to convert or get converted abc files or midi files to our Shroud of the Avatar sheet music folder to later make into sheet music. Once in sheet music form anyone can play from that sheet music. For example my song vendor in game has many sheet music's sitting out for you to click on to hear. You don't have to have the sheet music on you and you can also drag a sheet music to your non combat bar to play at any time.

8-The c-key is to see your character, the j-key is to see your journal, the b-key is to see your recipe book, the o-key is to see your emotes,/t is the trade window, /u is for universe chat, /l is for local chat to someone next to you, /z is for all in the scene or zone you are, /p is when you are in a party for party chat, /g is for guild chat when in a guild.

9-Chat windows can be dragged out from the original window to create various options to not miss anything such as whispers from someone. Then you can resize them using the arrows on the side. Then use the right blue gear to uncheck what you see in each window to customize your experience in finding things.

10-Regarding combat we have a use system so using skills raises them. You can raise as many as you like. After 40ish your skills will take too much xp so turn off some to not raise all at once. Don't forget to get passives from different trees to help you survive such as fire is important. We don't have a cap on skills in this game. I've heard that some will have a soft cap heading to ward the 200 mark but you don't have to worry about that too often unless later you do. I never personally have and I've been here since 2013. Also regarding for example life and death choices they would affect attunement and damage of each. I for example do life so I don't do death. Another example is fire and water but I have some of each to get the passive protection.

There are many dailies throughout the game if you like to do quests. Here is a link created by a player who did much good for the game @Anpu and added to sota wiki if you are interested. https://sotawiki.net/sota/Daily_Quests

Ok just some things I was thought of. I am not an expert on everything but I do hope this helps. I decided to save this and add to it later if I think of something. Happy journeys. Hope to see you in game

 

So... after a whole Sunday and two afternoons in and around Solace Bridge, I think I was able to make my decision.

First @Anpu & @Majoria, thanks for the last replies too. All in all, I have gained a good, initial overview of what could be waiting for me. And @ConjurerDragon, your hint that the thing with the forced multiplayer is not sooo bad also made me try it after all (it was 'so bad' in the end, but more about that later). But now to my impressions as a 'returnee...

Spoiler

The first surprise was when I found myself directly in the character generator when I loaded my old save - whether my old Avatar had been deleted due to my long absence or whether I reset it myself back then, assuming that one day, when I would return, I would start again anyway, I can't say and it didn't matter - I wanted to start from fresh anyway. So that wasn't the first damper, but the way I was thrown into 'the new world' was; no intro (I read the developers' linked statement - neither can I understand it nor agree with it, funny story, laughable), then no transition (a simple entry in the journal, nothing else - also laughable), no even remote attempt to 'pull' me into this said 'new world'. SOTA, in its current version, doesn't even try to build immersion, and for someone who remember the original idea (you play yourself, which was wonderfully represented by the intro and time on the Isle of Storms), I could only shake my head. But well, in this world we have Youtube (for the intro) and a screenshot archive, so I could refresh my memories that way and get myself in the mood.

I don't know if this was due to my faded memory, but the first glance at the inventory and the skill tree made my eyebrow go up faster than Mr. Spok's one; "Already learned so many skills and have every single crafting tool?!" Not good. Not fun. So, as an immersionist and hardcore role-player, I helped myself (again) and... well, emptied both inventory and 'memories of skills'. That means all skills except one, because I had already 'mastered' Distraction at level 40, which I couldn't forget right away - but luckily you can set what you've learned to 'lose experience', and that's what I did. Now it was about time to start my adventure and take my first steps in Novia...

... which ended 'around the next corner'; A zombie? In the middle of the road, between me and the bridge that would take me to Solace Bridge? "Crap" I thought to myself, and saw myself about to recreate my avatar again, so that I could at least retain the ability to fight. Without being able to 'sneak' or do anything else known from other role-playing games (take cover or... did I mention sneaking?) I saw no light here, but I had nothing to lose and so, when the zombie took a few steps off the path, I tried to get past him. Now my second eyebrow was also doing 'the Spock', because what was that? So I could walk past the undead, just a nose's length away, unmolested? And the rest of the Solance Bridge 'level' was anything but immersive; A child who single-handedly frees her ruined village from the undead plague (probably she is the Avatar prophesied in the prophecy and not me, at least that's what my logical mind tells me) and seemingly meaningless loot (a skeleton carrying fresh bread - of course, it's hardly going to eat it, so it makes sense that it's saving the bread for me) made me suspect that I hadn't landed in the aforementioned 'new world' after all, but was rather lying drunk in the pub and fever-dreaming. But "what the heck, at least you'll make it to the bivouac", I said to myself, having kept the day extra free and, what can I say, I couldn't write this story off yet - not yet....

... only to start almost crying with joy a few minutes later: There they were, my 'not so bad' fellow outlanders, with their 'funny names', and it was a great pleasure to watch them running around the camp, oh how beautiful. And I don't know if anyone recognised me from this thread, but.... there was also hip-hopping, yes, hip-hopping - I was so happy! There I come as 'into the new world' full of hope for a mmersive experience, in a game I bought because it offers me a hop-free experience, and what do I find? Honestly... I could still cry with joy! But of course it's not so easy to wake up from a fever dream, so I set 'saturation' to minimum (if it feels like a dream then at least I want it to look like one) and off I went to the outskirts, because, this one quest, this painting, we'll get it done before we wake up because the pub owner wakes us up rudely and throws our drunken butts out onto the street - and besides, I still remember this quest, so it won't take too long. And since I didn't perceived SOTA as a serious role-playing game from this point on, it no longer bothered me that another Avatar was ploughing through the forest with his 'pet' right in front of me. My eyebrows also remained unimpressed when my conversation partner, the good old picture-lover bandit, was slaughtered by another fellow Avatar in the middle of our discussion - his twin brother was there in less than five minutes to continue the conversation and I could then finish the quest and thus my trip to Novia - almost, because as the oracle would have it, other events outside my fever dream demanded my attention. And so my return to the bivouac was to take place only a few hours later - and then something strange happened...

Freed from any expectation, I found myself returning to a world that contained no other Avatars and I paused for a moment; should I? "Why not", I thought to myself, and set off to explore my surroundings at my leisure. Suddenly it didn't bother me that I could walk within half a metre of the bandits without them reacting to me, nor did I question the fact that, equipped only with a simple bow, I could mow down all the forest dwellers like a T100 on steroids in the middle of a medieval festival - no, it didn't bother me, because it made... Fun? If SOTA would hace been still a 'real' role-playing game for me, an immersive adventure, then it would have bothered me. But since I now just saw it for what it was, a (arcadic) game that has more in common with 'Diablo II' than with 'Kingdome Come', a somewhat 'gamey' game which consequently left out its own premise of making you see, feel and experience your Avatar as 'you'... then, yes, yes - I could actually enjoy what I was experiencing and even overlook and not notice that the forests and fields around me were slowly filling up with outsiders again - I didn't care, it didn't bother me anymore. And so I explored the (small) world around me, protected chickens from evil wolves, met creepy children, sick refugees and dark cultists, delivered love messages, fought hordes of undead and sank, almost unnoticed, more and more into this 'new world', learned that first impressions are often deceptive (and not only related to pictures and bandits in love) but also that what you are looking for can perhaps only be found if you stop looking for it.

In the meantime, I'm in Soltown, in the guest bed of the only tavern in town, have (re)met Arabella, got lost in the numerous conversations, learned to appreciate the combat and skill system (again), as well as the 'high feeling' when you can bring up a 'hidden' topic with an NPC by saying that 'one, correct' word, have let myself be drawn into the backstory and the world and his lore that surrounds it and go to bed with far more questions than I will be able to answer on my own - knowing, that out there, just outside the tavern, a bunch of jumping- happy fellow outlanders with funny names are just waiting to help me find my place in this new world.

So... so what have i decided for myself?

SOTA does some things wrong and a lot of things right, but above all, I think the developers have not yet succeeded in clearly showing what it actually is, what it wants to be and what it doesn't want to be. I don't think that dropping the Isle of Storms changes anything - the 'entry level' is just as meaningless as the Isle of Storms was, because this entry also gives the wrong impression. And the omission of the intro doesn't make it any better either, doesn't help to alleviate the confusion, especially when certain NPCs refer to things that you (the player) can only learn from the intro (and here I include the original introduction with Arabella on the Isle of Storms and the Oracle.

A possible solution? Well, my suggestion would be a 'flashback' - maybe some kind of 'flashback' between leaving Solace City and arriving at the camp - or more 'action' on the Isle of Storms itself - the portals are active, can't some 'bad guy' be haunting the island at that very moment when we arrive? Then there is the overloaded inventory and the far too many skills that you already possess and master at the beginning. It was extremely satisfying to get things slowly, the balance was good - one time I had to deliver wood, then ore again... and I had already understood the principle and when I had killed my first wolf and wanted to skin it but couldn't, thanks to the icons and the labelling I knew immediately what I had to do and where I could get it - and the fact that I had to spend gold on it also motivated me to go 'bandit hunting' a bit, something that went well and fluently thanks to the low level of the enemies in this section. I had to spend time in the starter environment which gave me time to get to know myself (my avatar) and the surrounding game world and its mechanics, slowly seeing the connections and making steady progress while never feeling like I had to 'know' and 'understand' everything immediately - a feeling that can arise very quickly when you find your way into SOTA for the first time and consider all the entries, items and the associated 'potential possibilities'.

Of course, I experienced all this from the perspective of someone who had already made a detour to New Britannia in 2018.... but still; there is enough little left to remember and so I have virtually rediscovered SOTA over the last few days. But would I have lasted so long without remembering that there was something about SOTA that had fascinated me even then and that I hoped to find again? I think not. And if I hadn't had a few passionate players here, in this thread, who encouraged me to give it a try, the answer would certainly be no. Apparently the developers have tried to make the introduction 'quicker', but assume that the player understands and knows what to do from the start - a mistake, I think. There's nothing wrong with giving the player 'everything quickly' if that's what the developers want - but then it should be done in stages. Leave the inventory and all but one combat skill empty.... but let the NPC who wants wood from me give me an axe and teach me the skill. Same effect, but in stages. And maybe one of the oh-so-talkative NPCs should also point out that SOTA is a marathon and not a short-distance run - let the player know right at the beginning that it will be a long, long journey in which he is by no means expected to become a world-saving super god in just 12 hours - let the newcomers know what they are getting into, then they might understand one or the other concept decision better.

Finally, a word about the forced open- mode; I see the reason for that change and I don't think the approach is bad per se, but the 'balance' is not right. Towns, settlements and camps, yes, that makes sense. But all of the outskirts? Nah, that's too much I think. I would have liked to be able to play the greater area at my own pace. There's nothing more annoying (for me) than when I'm immersed in the game world, trying to interrupt a summon, ready to 'do my bit' and then, from behind, a brightly painted guy with a giant 'something pet' and a funny name comes running up and sweeps the entire enemy field just in front of me - that's fine if you like that sort of 'game experiance', but you should be allowed to choose. I don't see the added value of seeing the other players here - and the camp is also enough for me to socialise or arrange to go out together. And of course the same applies to the overworld... I don't need to see 'characters' moving across the world like in 'Mount & Blade'. No added value, but a shake-up of 'my' game world - so again something that is well-intentioned in approach and sounds good on paper, but could do with a bit more 'subtlety'.

But what, to bring my wall of text finaly to a close, have I finaly decided for myself about my stay here in Novia?

Well...

Spoiler

...I have decided that my journey has only just begun here - and I think I have, after all this time, finally found my 'destiny'...

 

Forced multiplayer in towns but adventure scenes you can do private if you like. Thanks for your feedback. What I hear is you enjoy single player rpgs right? I have just finished playing Arx Fatalis again. It is a lovely game. As for this game as you've heard it did not develop in all the ways as an old school rpg but it does try to offer opportunities to make believe and role play. As it stands the game only provides immersion you find for yourself. It is something you must create. I have mentioned many times that for many of us the game didn't evolve in all ways we wanted and for me it is still my come back to game home. I also have everquest 2 on my pc but the empty feeling (for me that is) and lack of creative options it offers does not say home like this game does. As with many games each person must find their own place or stay on the search if that is what they want to do. I have come from THIS:
\

To THIS sota early days





To the NOW Sota Days






As you can see we now have letters we can use. Pointing at signs to see words wasn't working for many of the newer gamers that were not old school well it seemed. So letters are very helpful and yes tedious to work with one letter at a time sometimes lol. Anyway So much to create, so much to do. As you can see I'm a huge fan of our music system. In the long run Only you will know if and what is right for you. Again I'm Majoria in the game if I can assist in any way. Happy journeys. Have a great time