Population Concerns

I am concerned about the population too.

I play with another player and we are keeping an eye out for a guild or POT to join (I own a house). We play in Multiplayer Online mode and are not seeing many people.

Here are my thoughts on why this is-

1) Offline, Single Player Online,Friends Online modes are all neat, but you never really see how many people are playing in the game. If you see few people in MMO mode, you tend to think the game isn't very popular or social.

2) Shroud became available on Steam- that is about as close to a 'launch' as there has been. I have a strong feeling that games without an official launch will never see a lot of people in their game. There is a huge buzz when a game releases and thousands of players flood in, form guilds and groups etc. Without a release (and how many crowdfunded games actually release these days?), it just seems that there is a trickle of players in and out of the game, and that generates no buzz at all- quite the opposite.

Think about games that have been in open development for years with a low population. Has a 'launch' of some kind ever brought in many people, years after the fact? I fear that after hearing about a game for years that has no real crowds, players move on to the Next Big Thing.

I run around and see few other players around and my first thought is, 'this game is dying'. People don't tend to stick with MMOs that have few people playing around them.

This has me VERY concerned.

 

It's never really got going to actually die off. It's kind of like that old time footage of the Spruce Goose, where it takes off the water and flies low for a moment, then plops back down in the water, never to fly again.

It makes me so sad because, you are right, people who come into MMOs and sense no one's around, don't tend to stay. People want to see life in their MMOs, for a variety of reasons, and if it's not there, they walk.

One thing that kind of astounds me in this thread is how many people, passionate about keeping the game going, are quite open about how they're not using multiplayer. They are, in effect, killing the game themselves.

 

Of that, i will agree with whole heartedly.

 

This^

I mean, why not at the very least just keep it multiplayer only until it launches. Why kill it before it even has a chance?

 

We're worrying quite a lot about the population of a game that hasn't really yet had any marketing and is still considered unfinished.

How many Early Access games do you know that have been very popular in the current state of development that SotA is in?

I will admit I've only touched a couple Early Access games and I only really know of ARK and minecraft being successful at that stage. Minecraft is so much simpler from a systems design view. Ark is also a very different scenario as they had pretty much all of the core mechanics in place early on and primarily scaled out as they added art. And that game has nowhere near the item count we get into with a lot of SotA scenes. When you get to large/complex buildings the performance of that game drops like a rock. I couldn't imagine adding the same kind of deco items to it we have in SotA.

 

I counter that with:

How many Early Access games do you know that had their last full wipe, and final lot/property selection followed by full taxation, in such an unfinished state?

 

It's mind-boggling, really.

 

How many games/developers/frontmen have this loyal of a fanbase to weather it?

 

I think you are seeing that the loyal fanbase is not weathering it... And that includes people who spent alot more money on this game than most do for 1 game, 2 xpacs and a sub-rate for a whole year.

I didn't create this thread to try and turn people off this game. I did it with the hopes that the developers realize that a good portion of their community is losing faith and perhaps the players have some reasonable suggestions to improve the game. I'm a huge fan of Lord British and want to see this game succeed. It's why I still comment on this thread despite not playing in weeks and uninstalled the game...

 

I don't agree that a huge amount of fans have lost faith, those that are fully engaged in this project are playing the game whether you can see them or not. Trying to hurry a project this detailed is silly. It is massive in what it is trying to provide for us. Give them some slack. Posting something to try and turn the tables for the new inexperienced players serves nothing and is not fair to color their world by your opinion only. Many of us love what is being developed here, and that does not say that it is always the best circumstances playing a game sometimes frustrating where no system is complete, but it is all in the attitude that you play it with. Some attitudes can't handle it at this time, and others can, and will those who can't come back to see, well I say that is up to them, and also imo you better believe some will notice and be curious of what they might just have missed.

 

Small yet very loud minority.

I hammer the devs on stuff more then anyone... Im still playing every night.

 

Maybe slightly off topic, but it does pertain to seeing a lack of population. Why is the overworld map not forced multiplayer? There's nothing to hide up there.

 

Still has to do with performance issues for some people. Also, not everyone wants to see lots of people running around the overland map. Personally, I think it would be quite nice but I'm all for the multiplayer side. Too many interesting people to meet, though they are sometimes few and far between. Had a fun time grouping with 3 random players Sunday night just because we all happened to be in a scene together.

 

It does have massive goals, but that is largely content based. More locations, more quests, a bigger world in general and all that stuff. It's very exciting to think about how "big" the game can become in scale.

However, my problem -- and I know that I'm not the Lone Ranger when I say this -- lies with the underlying mechanics; the combat, the crafting, the economy. The stuff that's the bedrock of any game like this.

To me, it's all stuff that should be locked-down and water-tight at this stage, but it still feels like a major work in progress in those areas. When we're years in and that stuff is still ropy, I become the grump I am now.

As I've said before, when it comes to more content, maps, styles of clothing, buildings, whatever... fine, that all takes time and I have no problem whether something arrives today, next week or in 6 months.

But when the core fundamentals seem to be in a state of ongoing flux after years, to the degree that combat had radical changes not that long before the game went persistent (and it's still no good), I feel my worry is justified.

 

I remember when they first talked about going permanent my biggest concern was economic balance. Was told at the time by DS that the economic balance was one of the major things they wanted to touch prior to permanence... Needless to say, it got bounced back (shocked I'm sure) and we are where we are. Permanence with no economy and PoTs (like Lux) moving because what made them special (Graff being the primary location for silver) was ruined and nothing was put in place to make them worthwhile, especially when gated by the single hardest CP in the game.

 

I said it sort of expecting this answer. We are weathering it.... so far. I'm not sure any IP could weather it for an extended period of time. I certainly spent more than I should have on this. Luckily that sting is a few years old and I can't feel it anymore so it's not affecting my attendance. I'm here because I still find some stuff fun, though I can say with certainty that I don't actually play as much as I did. I'm kind of glad I don't feel the pressure to 'keep up' like I did a couple months ago. In my opinion, persistence was to pull people back in and get things on the add-on store moving again. I just wonder if they thought further than that or if it was "we'll figure it out when we get there."

 

I understand what you are saying, but not everyone agrees that combat is not good. I just got done playing a couple of hours of a control point with 7 other players, some very new, eveyone from different parts of the world, and we had a blast. I was doing a lot of healing to protect them as they were me and targeting to heal was a pain in the butt imo but at this point it is what it is, the devs know about it already. Will it get fixed, and to that I say yes, yes, yes it will. Will it be everyone's favorite combat and to that no, no, no it will not be. Sorry you have so many doubts that the game will be what you want as it stands now. I understand you want some directions changed but doubt they can be to a point you will like, I get it. How many games have you or I played that one system or the other wasn't your favorite, but overall you loved the game. My favorite crafting was Vanguard but many people would hate it but could we take tips from it , well yeah. Also when you died you lost a ton of experience, I still loved the game for other reasons and knew that that was a feature of the game since it was a released game. That too lead to it's demise after 8 years, it was released too soon, and buggy thanks to Sony. So fight the good fight for what you want to see and don't stop if it matters to you because we are not done. Ok and *cheers*

 

And there you have it... concerns that members of the community (who generally aren't developers but have played enough MMOs to know the score when it comes to this stuff), have flagged ahead of time... and still nothing got done.

If comes back to this issue of confidence. We want to have confidence that the game is being made well -- and there are certainly "big names" attached -- however, when issues like this crop up, that sense of confidence takes a beating.

 

And I understand all of that. Absolutely. But what I also understand is that the game is being made by people whom, presumably, have been playing games in the genre over the past 20 years and, you would think, taking mental notes.

As such, I just find it hard to reconcile that anyone who has played a lot of MMOs would go down the path SotA combat took at all, let alone keep it there. Compared to the industry as a whole (not just one title), it's really lacking.

And again, I understand how someone might like it. I believe you when you say you had fun tonight. But what I can't believe is that the devs sit there and compare SotA combat to what else is out there and think it's on the same curve.

 

Another thing is that there is no real goal outside making social right now. I was sure buying a house would be somekind of ''end game goal'' then they came with lottery. Each time i see deed for sell in market place its for real $$ and there is no way to get them by ''playing the game'' outside farming 3 week , crossing your fingers and throwing it in lotery.

I really have and issue with the facts that getting a house is not an achievement that came form hard work but only pure luck or cash shop.

You could farm for several month , put it in loterry and win nothing.

And to be honest if i don't have goal its hard to keep myself playing a game.

What could be my goal for keep playing right now ?

Farming to get more gold ? Us dollard is main currency in sota.

Farming to get more strong ? Ok but since pvp is death and pve still need more content , i don't see the reason.

Getting a house ? no you need to pay real money or be really lucky for getting a deed.

And quest are not finish.

I think that most of players who keep playing now , play cause they have invest so much money in it right now , that they would almost feel bad , playing other games.

And many like me , have stop play , and keep an eye around to see how thing will evolve. And plan on coming back later when there's gonna be more stuff to do.