Ok, so what are the chances this game makes it? As in, doesnt fail like AoC, WAR, Rift, Aion, etc.?

I am considering backing ($45) the game simply because UO was like crack for me back when I was younger, if theres even a chance SOTA grows to anything remotely like that, to be able to get in from the beginning like this is worth $45 to me easily.

I know this isnt UO part 2, but it is a spiritual successor, so far I like what ive seen but I don't wanna waste my time if this is just gonna fail miserably like most past MMO's.

Obviously no one can see the future, but what are your thoughts so far on the direction of the game? How far out are we from release? Will the graphics be improved on by a lot or is what I see close to final product in terms of graphics?

Is it one server? Will this for all intents and purposes be an MMO? I am not interested in single player mode, or offline nonsense.

I'm chasing the feel and memory of UO, I;m asking you guys who have been here since the beginning if that's a realistic expectation.

Discuss!

 

If I were you I would hold back with backing. For a good year.... this should give us a better idea if there's any hope for SotA to become something you might find worthy paying for or not, cause in current state and perspectives - there isn't much.

Not much more than majority of other MMORPGs out there.

1) There's no clear direction towards making this game stand out on a market, or for that matter: become product matching quality of some great memorable modern-day RPGs, even from the gameplay perspective alone. Arts direction seems to be non-existent. As for everything else I don't feel competent enough to give you an in depth answer it'd require
2) By the looks of current state of a game and the fact that Kickstarter was completed in April 2013? I would say: At a very least 3 years. That's being optimistic that this game will actually reach a release-worthy status before devs run out of money, which is also a real possibility. Though I suppose devs will settle down with something cheaper, as it often happens in crowdfunded games, so... realistically speaking I would say: about a year.
3) There will be an improvements to shaders and lighting. But the quality of 3D models and maps won't be significantly improved. It's just too late. To get this game visuals up to something that can be accepted today, yet alone: by the time they'll release it they'd have to scrap good 95% of existing 3D models and make them all anew.

ps. I been a tester of multiple games including way over a dozen of crowd funded projects, so got quite experience in knowing how games evolve and what you might get in the end product judging from an earlier stages of development.

It's better off in multiplayer, and when you play it - on every step you see that it's an MMO. It got very little elements typical to single player RPGs.

 

I think it will succeed purely off the fan base of the Ultima series, UO, and Lord British. Will it be the next WoW? No, it won't. I think this is as close to the old UO as you will find. It has lots of room to go still, but I enjoy it every release.

Just my 2 gold.

 

Even in its most MMO-like state, it isn't an MMO. It has some MMO-like features.
But it is selective multiplayer. Solo, Friends only, or open player.

But it's still not an MMO.

It's designed for you to play Episode 1, and then do something else until Episode 2 comes out.

But there will be some multiplayer things to do to keep you busy in between episodes, if that's what you want to do.

 

It is a low budget game, I'd expect things to take a while. I hope the graphics keep improving I'd really like to see more special effects in combat. However with that being said I see the posiblity it could be a great game.

 

In every way it is a sandbox MMO.
Perhaps you never played sandbox MMOs opting for by far more popular themepark MMOs, and that's why you are saying that it's not an MMO, but this is exactly how sandbox MMOs look like.

 

I'm saying exactly what Lord British says about it.

 

And I respectfully disagree. Everyone are free to say whatever they want to, it doesn't change the facts.

 

Of course you are allowed to say whatever you wish. You can think whatever you wish too.

However, I'm going to choose to believe Lord British.

 

If this game was out I'd pick it up just to play it - backing it also gets you a few perks and lets you test the releases. Most games do not let you test at this stage. Testing started before you even had skills or could attack other players. The game fleshes out more and more each release and has a strong community surrounding it - when it hasn't been released.

Sure, if you compare it against the most successful crowd-funded game, the money raised is different. But SotA has a certain sweetness and heart of it's own. If you want to play a space sim there's a game for that, if you want an RPG there's a game for that.

I am having fun just TESTING out the game - I can't wait for updates and new content as it is released. But this is not a complete game - and the game is one that will sell on compelling story and it's community. The story isn't in, the quests for the most part won't be in, the world isn't done, the skills aren't done - they're all in progress.

There will be many people who come in who want to see crafting and combat - and the systems are incomplete - and they may be discouraged. The game is not about graphic fidelity - but the graphics work for me and I'm looking forward to launch. I can't speak to how they might change with improved shaders etc. but really if you loved UO it was for the content, not the graphics (I am assuming).

The game is one server, different areas of the game may have per-person caps on scenes and create side-running instances of those scenes, but anything you do in a town is reflected in the other versions of the town. If I change my house in a town, everyone in all instances of that town sees it. But limiting a scene to 5/10/20/50/100 people will be to make it content-appropriate and performance-appropriate.

I would totally recommend backing the game to anyone - whether the higher tiers matter is up to you or not - but I've got no worries about the game being fun and the story being compelling.

The money is coming in, the people are here - I see good things for SotA. Sure, you may not find UO here - but you will find SotA.

 

@sigh144, that UO high you're looking for, I was able to find in SotA. It's not the same exact high since SotA is a game in its own right, but it's there The devs have said release should be 2015 for E1. Developing anything is a lot of work, and while there have been a lot of really ambitious release goals, I'm really impressed with how well the dev team is doing.

I have every expectation that SotA will meet my overall expectations for the game. I think the budget is modest, but doable. At some point in the past I believe RG said he needed 5-7M to complete this game, and they got that now.

I joined about 9 months ago, and the graphics and general performance have both improved. Chris has said graphics improvements will be an on going effort. This release some improvements were made to the female character, and I know Unity 5 is on the horizon which will bring some additional improvements to water and grass (among other things) as I understand it.

Your question about servers is a bit tricky; there will definitely be more than one server to support the computation and bandwidth requirements of the game. However I think what you're asking is will there be one world, and will it feel like an MMO, and the answer to both is yes. Instead of forcing users to choose a world, in SotA everyone joins the same world, but depending on the population density of each zone you may not see everyone single person logged in. You will however always be able to see your buddies, and other players that fit your play style. For example if you like to PVP, you will be around lots of like minded players.

In any case, for me SotA has enough UO and Ultima aspects to satisfy my nostalgia, and plenty of new features not seen before that it will keep my interest for a very long time. Even in this pre-release development phase of the game I find myself spending a lot more time in game than I probably should!

Hope to see you in game!

 

By backing you'll get some gear and a chance to watch it get built. There's no guarantee it'll be awesome but not backing isn't going to help it get there. That said if $45 means you're not going to eat don't do it.

I loved Ultima 7. I got way more joy out of it than the $50 I originally paid for it. And so I'm happy to support Richard Garriott and his team to give them the chance. I would have backed if there were no rewards though probably less

I'd also say playing a broken and incomplete game isn't necessarily fun. Even though you get access to the pre-alpha, if you're not loving it don't feel bad skipping them.

I don't think it's fair to say that. I still expect there will be a great SP story to it. It's just those elements aren't in pre-alpha yet.

 

I think there is no doubt they will put out a game what it will be like on final release is something else but here is a cpl points to consider they raised over 5 mil that's a huge amount for a crowd funded game also they already have all the basic game elements out and running granted they still want to add more basic stuff too it but it is playable now and better than most buggy first releases though yes they still have some bugs pathing and graphic issues and perforamnce could be better all they have to do basicaly just create the larger map

 

I would say and guess that it has an excellent chance to "make it" as the threshold for success is quite low as far as actual number of sales and active players required to make it investment worthy business/game....without too many compromises. I think it is a very safe bet and you will be in good company.

 

who said the others failed? their sole purpose is to make investment money back, anything else is gravy.

every single one of them is at gravy. i say they didn't fail, from a business perspective.

some, however, put their heart and soul into the games...you can tell that when the devs run home after a long day coding, and login to their GM accounts to interact with the players...

now, that..is a whole other type of not-failing.

 

Using that logic, isn't SOTA, being mostly CROWD funded, guaranteed to succeed?

Yes, the game got very good chanses to succeed, as - apart from most games - WE help make it.

How can i say that a game i help create sucks? I can't!

 

Everything you said here is a mirror of how I feel about it. Well put!

 

By keeping development costs low, they don't need massive sales and constant subscriptions. Because of the instance model and the way the game is architected, there is more going on client side with SotA than a traditional MMO. And some players can even play offline if they want. So Portalarium shouldn't need the same type of server infrastructure.

These are my guesses:

1. We get our first beta the end of Q1 2015. Depending on how well that goes, we get a 1.0 launch at the end of Q2 or Q3 2015. That may not mean 100% feature complete, but it means selling a retail copy that we're not calling Early Access and no more wipes.
2. So long as Steam keeps bringing in new backers and that starts to snowball, I think this game can be a financial success and that can snowball. But this is a bit of a gamble because some of the new backers from Steam may not be happy with monthly wipes, little content and the current pre-alpha state. That gamble needs to pay off, so I think it is important to have good communication on the Steam forums. (I think Starr and Richard realize this as well. They're smart folks).
3. Once the game launches, I think players will be happy buying the occasional vanity item for $5-$20 in the add-on store to spur even more revenue until they can get Episode 2 out the door. And I think there may be another Kickstarter for Episode 2 as well (or least a crowd funding campaign which they can do on this site without Kickstarter now).
4. I have faith that this game can be successful long term and I would encourage you to back it. But that goes back to my snowball analogy. If everyone sits on the fence worrying about how big the community will be or long term success, then no one jumps in and the game doesn't succeed. The more people support it early, the more likely it is to snowball. So please, do back it.

 

You're entitled to your opinion, but I couldn't possibly disagree with you more.

As I said above, early adopters spur the snowball. Everyone holding back will kill this. If you want the game to happen, then make it happen. As far as other MMORPGs being as much a successor to UO as this, I don't see how that is the case.

Most MMOs are WoW clones.

* WoW is class based where everyone has the same exact build for their class that is min/maxxed
* WoW is level based.
* WoW has content that is level gated. You go from this level zone to another level zone
* WoW is completely linear because of the level gates
* WoW had bind on pickup gear, killing the player economy
* WoW is quite literally pay to win now that you can pay a fee to skip to max level
* WoW doesn't have a deep story.
* WoW doesn't have an offline mode
* WoW doesn't have everyone on one server
* WoW doesn't have friend's lists to select who you want in your instances
* WoW doesn't have player towns and non-instanced houses
* WoW doesn't allow you to loot anything when you kill someone
* WoW has immersion breaking PvP battleground that you poof to and from
* WoW is utterly faction based
* WoW has no crowd sourced assets
* WoW doesn't have player performance spaces to encourage roleplay
* WoW is a gear treadmill
* WoW has rote combat where you perform the exact same combat rotation
* WoW has more UI than visible screen space
* WoW only lets you craft gear to cater more to the gear treadmill
* WoW doesn't have ghosts or a neat death system
* WoW doesn't integrate PvP into lore and quest (like the Oracle questline)​

If you can't see how SotA is vastly different from WoW and all the WoW clones that dominate the market, then I don't know what to say. This game is different. It is special. It is in so many ways a successor to UO even if it won't have all the UO features at launch. Give the game time.

 

It has been my experience that NO game will meet the expectations of our memories. That feeling we got from playing games in the past is lost forever. Why? Because when games like UO came out, they were unique ... ground-breaking ... no one had ever seen the like, and we were all budding game players in a time when games came out out monthly rather than hourly. I have very fond memories of games such as Doom, Baldur's Gate, and many others ... but when I play those games again ... they are horrible. And when games try to mimic them, the feeling is lost forever, simply because I've played hundreds of games designed in the same style.

The reason I came here is not for the game ... I honestly don't care how good it is. I care about becoming involved in a community, because that's where the true enjoyment lies. And from what I've seen in my short time here, this community is pretty amazing.