SotA Release Schedule Update

I'm not a fan of them either, but I would consider them a stop gap measure. Given more time, I could see Port slowly making PRTs more unique, but I wouldn't expect it any time this year.

 

Those at Row & Village level pledges have the best chances of getting lots in the cities/towns/villages since there are far more of them created within them than any town/city/keep/castle lots, or one could use thier city/town/keep/castle deed to places in them, but you basically have wasted your money by downgrading. Rest are stuck with PRT's. There's thousands of pledge deeds, some of us having multiple deeds from our pledges, so no room for us all in the npc cities, we will have to use the PRT's. I'm fine with that though, I just would really hope they make different biomes for the PRT's so we're not all stuck in the ugly forest scene ones. I would like to see grassy, mountainous, snow mountainous, and swampy PRT's. Communities can be made within PRT's much like people will do in PoT's and many can be made pretty popular vendor spots.

 

this schedule will include the date of our final wipe as well as the start days and times for final lot selection. This last underlined portion raises questions. Does this mean that those who have purchased lots/homes from the store or by the level of their backing are going to have first choice on lot selection? Day 1.. All Royal Founders. Day 2, All Duke thru Ancestor. Day 3, Everyone who purchased a lot from the store. Day 4, game release and everyone else can farm and fight over the last few scrap parcels..

 

To finally plant my roots. To have a permanent place to make my home and to able to work towards something which will be here for years to come. Yes this sounds very exiting ............a bit worried about the lot placement will we find one on D day . Not that many city plots

 

There's a lot selection post where DarkStarr explains the process. Once they give us the lot selection finalized date and times before the end of the month we'll know specifically, but this link will give the the jist of how the process will go.
https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/forum/index.php?threads/lot-selection-sequence-process.11466/

 

I don't like the current PRTs one bit either.
To make them a more proper stop gap until every one becomes unique I would suggest to change the PRT template to have more proper roads and add the basic npc vendors a village needs and they would become a whole lot nicer.
And throw in a few roaming npc families at the same time.
Then clone and apply this template to the rest of the PRTs.

As they are now they feel like stray buildings in a wood clearing to me.

 

A final date in no way means it will happen then or even a final wipe for that matter.
I can see it now release date 11 / 20 /2016 then on 11 / 13 / 2016 a statement comes out something like this.
With the release date approaching fast we have decided it would be better to postpone the release date a few months rather than release a unfinished product more announcements will be coming soon.

 

And most regulars on the forums will give a resounding /shrug. I wouldn't cry about a few months. All the other backers that don't read these forums may be even less upset. A few might get upset, and a couple trolls might try to stir things up. Business as usual.

 

I want to see an epic battle royale on the day of the final wipe, like when Blackthorn dropped a pile of balrons on the players during the end of the UO beta

 

"SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT"

We are pleased to announce that we plan to have an announcement very very soon!!!!

 

Maybe they could use the existing POT templates to create a few variations in PRT type.

 

Heh... would be sweet. Spawn dragons, daemons, phoenixs, trolls in every town to be cleared out over the course of the day by adventurers who would have to communicate and pool efforts.

 

I would love that!

 

I'll bide my time and wait for them to post their date, but I'm extremely concerned that they are planning to rush out a product that isn't even remotely near ready. We still don't have all combat mechanics in place, we don't have all cities, and we don't have any significant differentiation in the economy (i.e. resources). Unless they do some really impressive work in a very short period of time it is probably not going to go well at all.

But, I'll withhold judgement until we know how much further down the road it is going to be.

 

If the final wipe date is close to Christmas I won't be overly concerned. That seems like (barely) enough time to, for example, create and polish 30 scenes, many of which are complex and pivotal to the story (Brittany for example will be huge). It also seems like sufficient time to get the combat good enough (you will never please everyone) and add other missing pieces. They have done a lot in the previous year, and they now have more staff so the pace will pick up.

On the other hand if the final wipe date is substantially sooner, I'll be looking for some reasonable justification. I would expect development to take longer.

 

I agree

 

Some people keep talking about a "Release Date". I've only read that they're going to announce when the universe will be persistent, not that the game is done. That is, they'll announce:
- when the final wipe will be
- when the lot selection process starts

Based on what they said in the Q1 Schedule Update, a persistent universe does not mean the game is at alpha, beta, or complete, or optimized, or polished to production quality. Perhaps I'm reading it wrong, but I see nothing about when they'll say when the game will be done. Only when it will be persistent. I also don't see any mention of when they'll come out of Early Access.

It's a strange situation to be in given the challenges and risks of trying to be persistent prior to those major milestones. And going "live" even before the story campaign is complete? Perhaps we should just call Forsaken Virtues as "Season 1". The monthly hodgepodge releases of new features / re-broken features / content / polish / optimization / fixes / re-works / ragequitbugs / etc. become the episodes of FV. Sorry, no Netflix-style binging of a complete game (season) upon going "live". Maybe you'll play the main story campaign in monthly installments? But how does that affect offline?

If they stick to this plan, then no, there won't be any other wipe except the one you do on your own: delete your character. Forcing backwards compatibility before feature complete and extensive balancing will lock them in to decisions that haven't yet been tested for long term negative effects.

Alternately, they'll ask for forgiveness and announce a final final wipe just before actual launch / release / no longer Early Access / (actual game completion).

 

They've always pushed that the official lot rush won't happen until a few days before release time. Making a persistent universe with the lot rush implies (based on previous statements) that they are launching at that date. If this is the final pre-launch wipe (i.e. no more wipes ever) then that is concerning because we won't be able to pick locations intelligently (pick somewhere and all the reasons you pick it could change come launch). If its just the last pre-alpha/alpha/beta wipe than I agree that there is nothing to be concerned with. That's the reason I'm going to not speculate until they announce more.

 

Mid-summer final wipe so we get excited and happy that we can finally make permanent, meaningful progress in online mode. This instills a bit more patience in us so we stop whining about the offline launch that will be december lol.

Can't wait! Thank you Port!

 

This is exactly what scares me most: that rushing means nobody would be able to help them test the balance, which will be redone traumatically instead of iteratively with wipes.

...And leave a trail of deleted characters, who are as good as newcomers, in the face of all the feedback given during these years.

I keep my fingers crossed.

I see this chance as having low-but-non-zero probability. I wonder if they *had* to announce the final wipe just to calm down the doomcallers.