Am I the only one who thinks the game is too slow paced?

Well you did mention one key point. Which is this: "All i am saying is the distribution of towns, dungeons and scenes as it is at the moment makes traveling a pain in the....well you know where." The key words being "as it is at the moment". I can understand your argument there as we are not talking about a finished product.

 

They cannot, as it risks spoiling the storyline. It has been mentioned many times.
Edit: Me and you think differently I see as I was thinking of the storyline with your comment, I see what you mean by hurrying from place to place. I disagree, lets have one game out there for us old immersion players.

 

Heaven forbid they spoil gameplay for sake of storyline, or dare I say, create an alternative. The storyline is pretty lame, anyway, so it wouldn't be hard to give players the option to teleport using some bogus portals that already exist in game.

 

No that is of course true.
But as i said a bit further in the start of this topic: with PoTs around the corner it's time to point that out.

 

Can I ask what brought you here then? Here is the Kickstarter Video with Richard talking about how the Story is the main focus of the game.
Start at about 2:50

 

I was going to use Bob TheFish but the fear of those waiting for fishing to be implemented scared me too much. *hides from Winfield*

 

Just because I think the story's lame doesn't mean I'm not in it for a good story. I just don't particularly like where this one is going. Just because I enjoy immersion and exploration and in-depth gameplay doesn't mean I want to drag ass to accomplish anything. It'd be different if it took me hours to cross the continent if there were legitimate adventures in between.

Take Skyrim, for example, as I recently played it (yes, yes, I'm behind on the times, I know). I absolutely love exploring every nook and cranny of that world, much as I did in Fallout and other sandbox RPGs, but once I've discovered something, I don't want to hoof it alllll the way back there just to move onto the next place. I've completed that area, I've explored it for an hour or more, perhaps, discovering everything. I bushwhacked through the surrounding areas, looking for unmarked landmarks and found all sorts of cool things. That area is complete (dare I say, cleared). Nothing new is going to happen there, time to move on.

I don't want to have to keep trudging back and forth between completed areas that don't have anything left to offer me. There are crappy, lowbie enemies that give me nothing in this area; I'm just walking by them. I'm not stopping to explore or smell the roses, because the instance is dull, the random encounter is copy-pasted, the mobs are irrelevant and only serve to dull my gear, the graphics don't impress enough to take a moment to absorb it all in, and unless the unique encounter offers something special (which may be imbalancing long term), it's just a speedbump or a hassle in my quest for fun.

If I do happen to bump into another player, they're doing their own thing, I have no meaningful presence to them. They additionally mean absolutely nothing to me. I'm not put into a position to have to recognize them (hell, I can play it SPO and they can all not exist for all I care). When they talked about immersion and interaction, I expected something different. They knew what they were doing, appealing to both Ultima and UO players alike, to drum up interest (and money). But I'm not impressed with what they've shown or where they're going with it.

And before anyone pulls the old "pre-alpha content" card, Shroud has more playable content right now than Star Citizen, and I'm actively hungry for that game. It has nothing to do with content; it's all about potential, and Shroud simply isn't offering anything new or exciting, even within the expressed (and accepted) limitations of the game.

 

Ok, let me rephrase my question: What do you like about SotA? What do you find that you like and is keeping you here?

 

I do understand what you are saying, but what if when you trudged back something was different. I think that is one of the points. Right now so little is in the game. It is easy to forget the vision that this game will surprise you in so many ways. That is my hope and belief untill I am proven wrong. The hex system was stated to give the option to change up things at will. I think at this stage in development we have no clear view of what is awaiting us, and isn't that great in a way. I am happy you keep speaking out strongly for what is not there that you wish for. No worries. I have things I want to see improved also, but I am not going to assume that won't happen at this point. If the magical vision I see for this game won't be realized then that would be a shame. I don't think I know anything other than trusting this process with us and them, community and developers.

I do not actually care for the UI on the combat. I want something more interesting. We have the glyph system and they are on a hotbar, and yes they are on a hotbar, but what if it wasn't just like a hotbar but something really cool instead? So hopefully the constructive criticism will get us something special in regards to the combat issues. I'm not saying do away with it, but give it attention in the funcitoning department please.

 

I think towns are too close together, personally. Travelling should be a major part of gameplay. That would, of course, mean adding more content in to make travelling interesting, work on reducing transition load times, etc.

There are plenty of games, though, which are all about travel and nothing else. They're good games.

 

Now to even imagine the size of the map being an issue when we don't even have the game yet hmmm. We don't know what's going to be in the game that isn't there yet. What if the developers just decreased the size or changed a design of something just because we said to because we have no imagination for what could be, along with features or designs we'd be missing once they are put in the game. I don't think there is one person in this community that doesn't have a great imagination for what could be and why are we here, that is why. We are gamers with great imaginations and feedback to what we like. What if you walked back over that same patch of ground and it opened up and just swallowed you up. The hex system will make things like that possible. I don't care for people losing faith here and there, that is natural to human beings, but to lose it when we aren't done. Come on, get back in the game. I have many more ideas to promote. Find yours, I'd love to hear them. Patience everyone, we ain't seen nothin yet. Too easy to criticise the system as it is. But it is going to be like this quote in the long run. You can thank me later lol

"If you only look at what is..........You might miss what could be" **cheers**

 

I think the combat and general game mechanics are too fast actually.

Mix that in with the fact that there's no collision and you have a recipe for twitch and latency dominating pvp. So no, I think the game is way too fast for my tastes.

 

Good posts guys. Most importantly, can someone give me a list of all the movement speed boosts in the game? I'll be looking into the aforementioned skill trees if I can ever find a trainer again.

I'd just like to note, people toss the word 'immersion' around way too much. It's a completely subjective adjective. I'm immersed by games that have me engaged by gameplay elements. I lose my immersion when I'm not engaged and simply walking around. I start thinking about what to cook for dinner or if I need to pay some bills or another game I could be playing.

Now lets talk about realistic expectations. We expect realistic running speeds to be similar to the pace the avatar runs in game. But that doesn't account for the day to night cycle. One of the things I was so impressed with in Ultima 7, was how complex the NPC schedules were. It made sense to me that 200 years could pass as quickly as the game purports because the day cycles were so quick. Because the cycles were so quick so were people. It's unrealistic to expect a person to run through a town the size of a suburb and have that take up 2-3 hours of a day.

Let me ask you guys a silly question. I've seen it been said before that Ultima 7 was a slow game. It all depended on what system you ran it on of course, but I'm assuming many of you played it on or close to release. Like I said, I played it on a system that was super strong for it 6-7 years after release at blisteringly fast speeds. And it's one of my favourite games of all time. I'd run into a new town like I was Speedy Gonzales and I'd stop from time to time to take in the atmosphere, raid a house, watch and npc, or fight some brigands. What exactly did I miss? I've started Ultima 7 countless times and played through it to the end three times. I've always set the dosbox cycle to speed the game up to the way I played it originally. I frame the question like this, because I don't know what slow travel and periods of doing nothing provide or add to the immersion of a game.

It's also worth noting here that this is all assuming the load times will vanish at some point. I'm sure it doesn't need to be said, but we're all assuming these 1990's styled load times are going to be removed at some point. Other than that, like I said in another thread, I like the game and the systems it provides. I like the atmosphere, music, item manipulation, promise for npc schedules, etc. The only thing that's rather prohibitive about this game is the speed.

 

@Sonnington,

With all respect, I don't see any replies here arguing for long travel times based on immersion. Ravicus did mention it in passing, and other than that, just Budner, who complained about using it as a rationale. Immersion can be an important part of a role-playing game, and its different from whether a game is engaging; it means the ability to feel like you're in a real time and place -- like you're in a real world and not a game. An immersive game can be completely unengaging, and an umimmersive game can be completely engaging. Its not that subjective.

I generally find the other parts of the game need to be solid first, and if something really was bad gameplay, I'd be against it.

There has been travel in every Ultima game that I can remember, going back to the early Ultimas, where you had a dual-scale map and had to travel on the overland map between city to city. From time to time, you would stop and camp, to eat and rest. Even in Ultima VII, it wasn't just about going from town to town; there were actually a lot of hidden caves, ruins, and so on, that you can find if you explore the wilderness long enough, and campsites for bandits in the forests.

Then there were very fun role-playing games which had even more emphasis on travel, like Darklands; one of my favorite games. Travel was extremely slow, but you ran into a variety of encounters on the way, just like in SotA. You could also camp and rest and do alchemy. And a lot of other old DOS RPGs, whether Wizard's Crown, the Eternal Dagger, Bard's Tale, and Might & Magic, were nothing but travel, combat, and going back and forth from shops. They were engaging games for their era.

Some games are completely about travel, like Oregon Trail. Others, like Sid Meier's Pirates! were almost all about traveling from location to location.

So I just don't agree with the idea that a game centered around travel has to be tedious.

 

For one, the fact I bought the game already. That keeps me here.

I like the aesthetic, the armor and clothes and such. It looks and feels, visually, like an upgraded UO. The graphics aren't up to par for the industry (or the fact it'll likely release in '16), but I'm cool with them, personally. I like the texture on the augmented armor, for one, it looks like my gorget irl (I wish they had gorgets in-game, though). The pseudo-steam punk setting is pretty sweet, though I hope they put in flintlocks or something, eventually.

Dual wielding is cool - any time I can swing two blades, especially a longsword and a saber, I'm set. I think the ideas of the skills are cool, even though I am far from impressed with their implementation currently. Things like Dodge and Parry need to be tactical buffs and counters, not just a +X DR for the next hit, which defeats the point of even using it (especially when you can't guarantee you'll pull the card when you need it).

I think instances can work, but only because Star Citizen changed my mind on their potential. I just don't see, based on what the devs have said, the instances being used to bring players together meaningfully (unlike SC plans to). And since the best gear is supposed to be player crafted, I can't imagine there will be meaningful carrots to hold out in front through random encounters after a short time. Either way, instances on a single server where everyone's always "together" means no server merges or dead servers in the future, and no divergent storylines differing from shard to shard. That'll help with longevity.

I keep hearing this word, "vision". I don't exactly know what that vision is supposed to be, and every time I've asked, I've never gotten a descriptive answer. I can look at just about any other anticipated game and describe their vision. I can look at past games, successes and failures alike, and surmise what their "vision" was based on it. I still don't know what the vision of Shroud is.

And I don't mean vision like "this is supposed to be the best classic RPG ever made." I mean, "We're aiming for interactive environments such as..." Flipping levers, opening doors and turning on/off lights does not constitute "interactive" or "immersive" gameplay.

RG wanted the exact same thing, and that's why I don't get this "vision" talk. What I read and watched in interviews, what got me throwing down money, doesn't add up to the fundamental mechanics being put into place. They want immersive gameplay and then add in a system that requires constant attention that cannot, under any circumstance or UI change or polish, be made intuitive like a classic hotbar that relies solely on muscle memory and timing, where it becomes second nature. With a traditional hotbar, you could hide the entire thing and still use it effectively, given player skill; this is an impossibility with the glyph system (minus a fully locked deck, which we all know cannot compete with a hybrid deck).

 

I'd like overland map movement to be faster. It's rather painful on the roads and in the forest/mountains it is just brutal.

 

It all about preferences.

 

from dewderonomy "I keep hearing this word, "vision". I don't exactly know what that vision is supposed to be, and every time I've asked, I've never gotten a descriptive answer. I can look at just about any other anticipated game and describe their vision. I can look at past games, successes and failures alike, and surmise what their "vision" was based on it. I still don't know what the vision of Shroud is.

And I don't mean vision like "this is supposed to be the best classic RPG ever made." I mean, "We're aiming for interactive environments such as..." Flipping levers, opening doors and turning on/off lights does not constitute "interactive" or "immersive" gameplay.


RG wanted the exact same thing, and that's why I don't get this "vision" talk. What I read and watched in interviews, what got me throwing down money, doesn't add up to the fundamental mechanics being put into place. They want immersive gameplay and then add in a system that requires constant attention that cannot, under any circumstance or UI change or polish, be made intuitive like a classic hotbar that relies solely on muscle memory and timing, where it becomes second nature. With a traditional hotbar, you could hide the entire thing and still use it effectively, given player skill; this is an impossibility with the glyph system (minus a fully locked deck, which we all know cannot compete with a hybrid deck)."
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Oh and I don't disagree with all you say of course. I don't care for the hotbar feel at all. I'm just hoping it is a first pass wich is a new statement we are hearing from the Team, if it doesn't say 'complete', it isn't complete. I really like having that to go by. In fact I love that many things don't say complete by them I want fabulous as much as you do and I respect that you speak out also. That takes commitment. **cheers**

edited*******

 

Exactly. Ignore the market preferences for long enough, end with a product that's dead in the water.

 

@redfish
That's quite an interesting read. My point on immersion is that a mechanic may be immersion to one person and not to another. Like I pointed out, I prefer a fast movement speed for my character and I lose interest in a game if I'm moving too slowly and not engaged. I'm not saying everyone is like that and it's been implied the opposite is true for others. Although, it's rather difficult for me to imagine a game that's immersive and not engaging. How can you be disengaged by a game while also being immersed?

In any event, my premise isn't that traveling in and of itself is boring. I'm probably a part of a rare breed who sees value in backtracking to create a sense of connection through familiarity. As long as you're doing it quickly. What I'm curious about why people are against the idea of increasing the move speed of the character in game. What are the advantages of a character that moves slow over a character that moves quickly?