Steam Reviews Seriously Bad

Its no secret shroud is slaughtered on the steam fourms constinently. I wonder if they are an indication of how new players will recieve the game. I believe that the new user expierence needs an overhaul and some of the basic game play mechanics need to be improved before the soft launch in r32. I understand content is important but the basics are the key ingredient. I hope by r32 we can turn arround those reviews about 80% of new reviews are negative, ive tried to convince a few friends to join and once they check out the game they have all said no thanks. A tittle like this with Richard, Tracy and the fame of uo and ultima should have these people knocking down the doors. Smooth game play and less lag studders crashes, easyier to navigate chat system, easier to find quests, better map system and vendor locations on the maps will help the new user expierneces.

 

Had a very similar response from people who I have gifted the game to and there is only so many times you can argue "well the game isn't for them" before you have to take a step back and look into the real issues, embrace the virtue of humility and fix things.

 

I hear you and I agree with you too.
While I don't agree with every review on Steam, some of them are right.
The game does look dated, the combat is clunky and there is not much to attract new players to play the game.
The travel system is far to be the best in the game industry.

On any forum on the internet, the game is being bashed, big time.
So sure, the sales are going down and then they have to introduce the gold crowns.

Which is still not the best decision for this game, who was suppose to be buy to play only and nothing else.

 

Main reason my account went up for sale.

 

Not the point of the OP.
This is not the next COTO rage post.

On topic:
Yes we need polishs. Badly and fast.

 

I hope the development will heavily focus toward improvement and polishing of the game core feature by R32 as listed on the Q2 plan. No more surprises like new camera control in R29 and COTO add-on in R30. At least bring the issues up to us prior implementing any changes of this similar scale would be nice too.

 

The timing is key here, lots of new users coming in to the game soon and they might have friends. Now is the time to stick the landing.

1. Game play mechanics (fun smooth)
2. Ease of use chat/quests
3. Lag free game play no crashes
4. Referrals will drive this game only 1 chance at a first impresson.

 

Is on topic, is one of the reason reviews are bad and potential sales are going down. EXACT reason I refuse to put more money into the game. Because you don't see it as a reason to stop supporting or give a negative review does not mean that someone else has to do the same. So next time don't think you r opinion out weighs someone elses.

 

Polish and game improvement != Your coto Problem. But hey who am I to stop you. And you have no idea about my opinion on the whole coto thing.

 

One of the biggest complaints I hear from my friends trying the game is that the NPC conversation system is just strange.

While I know that "?" and "!" are not in the plan, talking to an NPC can't be the same as talking to another player, merged right into the same chat window. Its just way to far removed from the "normal game mode" people are used to. Its presentation more then anything.

After many, many releases its just something that I can't argue with people on. I can't stand it myself, and honestly its just about the most important part of communicating the games direction and main plot to the player! Full Typing to the NPC is not a problem per se, but its just kind of un-natural in this day and age to try and mix that into the chat system window. I can't really, or very cleanly be reading about my quest AND communicating to my guild or party. Its really kind of one or the other and this close to final wipe they really should have put some time into this clunky-ness.

I know we don't want to hand hold here and put quest trackers with big red circles on the map, but there HAS to be something between that and what we have to keep people from running to the doors before they even experience some of the greater parts of the game. You have to be able to hook them, and this just does not do it.

I know the Devs are not real happy with the current presentation, and want to do something with it, but each release that goes by without serious work on that front is just another month when I can't get friends to come and play. Its just too much of a bridge gap to ask them to take i guess.

 

You raise an excellent point.. the new standard is the ! And ?. People identify with this new standard and like it, Im an old school gamer and ill admit Ive learned to like it as well. The new to this style rpg players will most likley not like this seek and find quest system.

 

Lord how we tried. By virtue we tried and tried and tried. I gave up. Everyone gave up. Porty would not listen.

I don't blame Porty alone. The forum 'cartel' is also responsible.

 

I think people expected somethig different from SotA.
If you tell people that SotA will play like a single player RPG like Ultima 1 - 9 with the ability to go online and play in a sandbox like in UO then you cannot deliver a sandbox like UO in which you can play offline. Those are just two fundamentally different types of games. The game mechanics are different, the presentation is different. SotA plays and feels like an MMO and according to what was said at the bginning of development SotA should have played like a single player RPG which could also be played online.
Then of course we have the walls of text. I think people don't want to read walls of text anymore today. In no Ultima we had such massive walls of text. The art in those games was in having deep conversations with interesting NPCs without having walls of text.
Then finding the right keywords... It is a pain sometimes and leads to new walls of text or to be more precicse the same walls of text as the NPCs always repeat the same things over and over. The whole presentation of the dialogues and the story is so bland... There were no cutscenes in Skyrim and still the game told the story in a much more interesting way.
Quests... They lack depth, twists, surprises, sometimes complex solutions.
Then of course we have those players who expected SotA to be Ultima Online 2 and who are now disappointed that this is not the case.

Basically two worlds are clashing in the game. Single Player fans who expected a true single player experience and UO fans who expected UO 2. Somehow neither is getting what they wanted and expected.
Sometimes I ask myself who this game is made for. The devs said it is for players who expect more from a game, no handholding, even some retro elements. I expected much more from SotA in terms of single player, story and quests. Sometimes a bit handholding is ok and if a retro element is just irritating even for someone who grew up with retro games, then something is wrong.
People are disappointed with SotA and I can understand them.
Even if SotA wants to be something new and different from what we have now it doesn't seem that this new and different game can reach a big enough audience because sometimes new and different just means strange.

 

And that's exactly where there needs to be some bridging system in place to transition a new player from what they EXPECT to see, to what they ARE going to see. I get that Richard doesn't want to see the standard indicators, and i'm OK with that, but when players are used to seeing that EVERYWHERE, then you need something more then a hint box to get them understanding HOW you expect them to play your game. Throw um a bone for pete's sake.

I think what Lum has created is amazing from an informational standpoint. Its rich and detailed dialog should be commended but second half of that is how we get the player to interact with that information and make it fun. Right now, its not. Its a chore, and difficult and un-natural to what IS today's norm. I mean maybe its a separate call out window with bigger, fancier fonts? I dunno, there has to be some way, like how they integrated the whole crafting system into a clean interface window to present the dialog and conversation to the player.

Maybe there's a window that pops up with cameras facing both characters faces, a place to talk, a place to trade and something that tracks the conversation placing bullet-points you can refer back to whenever you talk to that NPC. Maybe its just the Journal entries that you actually SEE being placed into your journal as you are talking so you know, HEY, I'm getting somewhere... stay with this. And, when I go to my journal later, I can say, yeah I remember when that was added.

 

I read most negative reviews and I feel they are mostly criticizing the lack of risk vs reward and the overall state of the game (nothing to do here besides bad quests and grinding, but what for???).
Also going persistent with so many bugs that give unfair advantages to char development, and make a lot of play styles (air is king) nonviable, the game is currently still a mess.
Which would be ok for pre alpha... but not early access and most certainly not for persistence.

I think everyone realized that the problem of SotA is the game design... people wanted a virtual world and became a hugbox with addon store. It was clear its not going to be total anarchy, but real gamers need at least some competition or challenge. The game is just boring for most people.

 

Well if the questing system is not working great and fun to use, the whole game is going to feel like nothing but a grind.

 

Not sure what "the fourm cartel" is, all I see is 40 diffrent people wanting 50 diffrent things and we wonder why the game is in a confused state of delivery.

 

I mean, imagine for a minute when you talked with an NPC, you were in a different window, somehow with your journal "paper" off to the side. As you talk to the NPC and get farther into the dialog, you see a pen writing the journal entries into your book. Perhaps those journal entries have the code words still underlined so if you return to the NPC, and those journal entries reappear, you can still click on them and get more information?

You are still not throwing a "!" up in the air but at least when I quest, or return to the PC the game presents me with some sort of indication that Yeah, you've done your due diligence and worked through the dialog. I've already seen the entries go into my journal and I should now know where to look for them in the book - perhaps indexed by scene, NPC, etc.

The building blocks are there, it just needs a much better and cleaner UI, one that is fun and engaging to use. There also needs to be better indications when you succeeded in getting or doing something someone asked of you.

 

Seems to me the opinion of someone who's actively playing the game should out weigh that of one who sold their account...'course that's just my opinion.

Cheers,
Cornfellow

 

People can try to offset those by leaving positive reviews. As we get closer to the actual real release in December-ish, I might send messages to Steam users who left negative reviews that were based on the early state of the game and ask them kindly to consider updating their review based on the state of the game at release.