Yahoo! Games: article + interview

Please do not take articles and interviews like this as anything but hearsay. For instance although they were not mentioned specifically in the article we have not removed Open PVP flags, guild warfare, etc. Nor are we making any story specific quests that will require you to participate in PVP.

Interviewers are under NO obligation to represent a complete picture of any given feature, content, etc. Making sweeping conclusions, proclamations, assumptions, etc. from articles like this does nothing positive for the community.

 

It's official, you both were right

 

I agree. there is a lot of over interpretation in this thread.
To OP: thanks for the links .

 

Wow... I read through the same passage and didn't get that impression *at all*.

 

That sounds like lawyer speak... so there is obligatory "Don't lawyer me bro"™

 

Perfectly well stated! The biggest danger to SotA, from both a theoretical design and a logistical implementation standpoint, is that it's trying to do too much. I have faith that the team will pull it off, but goodness, what a challenge!

 

Thank god Darkstarr stepped in and returned sanity to the thread. It seems that every time a dev speaks someone panics or causes a melt down.

 

I don't see how having some PVP aspects with some safe areas for non-PVPers makes it a "PVP game."

And I don't see how anything in the first sentence above inherently contradicts the second.

 

There's probably some raw business issues underlying his dislike.

Great stories about creative, emergent PvP behavior, like the ones Richard often tells, do not necessarily translate into a viable business model.

 

GAAAAACK.

Good grief people. It's an *interview.* Not a design document. The interviewer's questions are not constructed to cover every single aspect of every single design issue. Nor can the interviewee, in such a format, be expected to cover every single aspect of every single design issue.

True, Richard has a certain charismatic charm that comes across in person, or on video, with the way he inflects things, that doesn't always translate well into print. But his interviews still make fascinating "reads." Read them and enjoy it. I don't want him to have to take 10 minutes to formulate an answer in a phone interview.

Could we have a week -- just one week -- where people don't go OH MY GOD ONE OF THE DEVS SAID A THING I DON'T LIKE THAT ONE THING WILL MAKE ME TOTALLY HATE THIS GAME NO MATTER WHAT OTHER PARTS I MIGHT LIKE NOW I'M GOING TO SELL MY PLEDGE WAAAAH.

Seriously, people. Get a grip.

One of the points of the openness of Portalarium's design process is to be able to hear the devs "think out loud." Do you want all the devs to just clam up between now and launch? I like being able to hear them think out loud. And I don't get that if Richard, Starr, Chris, etc. have the impression that they have to watch every single "a", "an," and "the" that comes out of their mouthes.

 

Yeah we say we want more communication out of them and what not but sometimes we certainly don't encourage it by our actions!

 

Hmm I think something like that mod might be a bit too much but perhaps a middle road would be good. So far though I am very happy about their plans for food/cooking. I was especially happy about food spoilage. I hope that most food does not last forever when cooked though. I mean having things like beef jerky last forever or at least so long it is pretty much forever game time wise is fine. But if I cook a regular steak for instance while it might last a few days longer then a raw cut of meat it will not last forever. My guess though is it will depend on the food and will likely follow fairly close to rl.

 

Collect your things from your desk, you are fired!

 

I will saying, having had time to fully read and digest the interview, I am REALLY looking forward to seeing how they proceed with the implementation of food.

Personally, I would love the level of realism that would come from implementing similar features to that mod. I'm a huge far of that level of detail. However, I understand for the average gamer, going to that extreme might be a little more then needed.

 

Still, its a good read!

 

I didn't notice it mentioned in the interview but it may have been there and I just overlooked it. Did anyone catch how often people need to eat? Or what the day/night life cycle of SOTA is?

Many games seem to enjoy a 4 hour day night life-cycle...I think shroud feels more like 2 in these releases. Do we have any idea what the goal is for launch? Personally, I think it should be exactly 24 hours because then I'll understand it and be able to manage easily. Yes I know that if it's 24 hours then "some people" will rarely see the day or the night...but to them I say, so what? (not really...to them I say how about a 48 hour day and night cycle then?)

 

The length of an entire day has changed since R1 and the split between day/night has also changed. It's something they'll continue to tweak but for these early releases, I would expect it to be faster than the final length and split so players can test the systems in the short amount of time during the playtests. Eventually we'll settle on what feels right and it'll undergo long term testing when the game also goes persistent.

As to eating requirements, it wasn't mentioned in the interview. But in past conversations and posts, it does not seem to be a requirement. Food will like still act as a healing and buff, to give you energy to do certain activities, to maintain that energy, or to boost that energy. But you won't die from not eating -- that would be too hardcore for most players.

 

I'm torn on what might be optimal -- the day/night cycle added a lot to Ultima V, since some NPCs would wander off for secret meetings at night. But sometimes it got tedious if you were just waiting for the sun to go down or come up.

 

Yes, I know that smack, but thanks for the attempt.

Right...that's kind of where my mind was too. But the reason "time to eat" is important is because you don't want people eating a ham sandwich while parrying a sword attack anymore than you want people feeling like most of their in-game time is spent managing food intake.

So where I see the balance would (eventually at launch) be a 48 hour day night cycle that allowed players who play for 2 hours an opportunity to EAT for some benefits so long as they allow a few minutes for digestion.

 

Yeah, I hear you.

So if you know ahead of time that something isn't going to happen until it's a totally new day (perhaps as much as 24 real hours away!) then maybe you could and should go do something else.