This community has a Problem

I have seen 300 and 400 hp people in shardfalls, the problem is you compare, and yes you are comparing when you say you cannot compete, but you are comparing yourself to the top players. And it is this comparison that is leading you to despair. You hope to compete with the top players, and fall into despair when you think you cannot. Hope and despair as the same idea on opposite sides, this is the duality of the mind. You will find the only way you will ever be happy living with this mentality is if you never lose.

 

Sadly, you'll likely be waiting forever. MMORPG's based on anything but combat as the main activity don't do too well. And the RP base itself is minuscule and not able to support a full game's development on its own.

Proof? Look how many RP servers most games have, and how many of those servers have been shut down in recent years.

 

@Earl Atogrim von Draken

thats just one of my Problems for this week...

https://gogameguru.com/get-better-at-go/go-problems/

i know

@Mac2 you are right in some way, although it's maybe just about SotA and because i'm reading too much in the forums about highlevels and such...

Yep i'm in the Ruins and Shardfalls too with less than 500 HP and i can manage it until... and hey i won some duells against people who are higher level than me

I'm not comparing at all to others - but for SotA and what i often read in the forums this is maybe true - bad day as i already said...

 

OK. My friends from senior year of highschool had lots of diversity. First of all there was my friend Joe.

Joe-- He liked lots of music. S .. stuff I can't remember and others I did. HOwever there was a time we replayed Partical Man from they might be giants over and over all night. didn't matter as long as there was enough friends and drinks.

There was Me-- I was like Joe but didn't know anything about music exept that I liked most of the stuff Joe liked except for the crap his older brother liked. He and I were both very similar. IN fact I really liked his girlfiend too.

There was Shant-- We called him shepard. He liked Aerosmith and smiling.

Ther was Bobby-- He is schitzophrenic, liked death metal, long hair and contemplating suicide.

There was Sean-- He loved to play the air drums and pull allnighters but always fell asleep. He had my heart then and till this very day. A true friend.

There was Bill--- AKA wild bill. Military, drank, had the best stories, tough but free.

There was Eric-- He partied with us. He was a virgin but the girls loved him. He came from a religious background and his cognitive dissonance would manifest because he loved partying and loathed it afterwards. We always tried to get him laid, and take him to psychic shops and porn stores which left him feeling like he had demons and eventually acused us of going to hell. Love the guy. he's tottally opposite now but don't talk to him anymore.


Back then we would weave together wonderful chaos and once it reached perfection we would usually set it on fire and begin again the next night.

After getting drunk bobby would run down the block claiming he would kill himself, and Sean would comfort him. Joe and I would amuse ourselves by saying oh no bobobean is going to kill himself again and contemplate how horribly bad that would be and laugh it off. The rest I don't recall except waking up in the morning saying lets not wake up with headaches again. Basically it was Peter Pan waking up with a hangover. IT was truly the best of times....

 

Sandboxing RP into a game, yeah, I agree. RP infused into a game as a core design, I disagree.

RPG's have a huge following. MMO's seem to forget how to RP.

 

...there were just a few and UO was one for sure - there are still a lot of RP-Shards.
Maybe therefore i have to much expectations about RP in SotA like some PvPers with PvP...

i need to be more patient - amen

 

Well now,if you are talking PVP, which I was unaware of, that is a whole different animal altogether. I never flag PVP,the bonus XP isn't worth it to me, not when you include the risk of dying and having someone take stuff from you. And no matter what anyone tries to tell you, I have talked to players who say their "immersion style" is to kill anyone flagged PVP as many times as they can or pick pocket them to play a "thief". I don't hold this against them, but doing that just isn't me. So, your skill can over come a higher level player in some cases, but it will not work against others. If you wish to practice your PVP skills in a safe setting,the EVL guild host the Virtue League each Wednesday night in Virtue Oasis. In this setting,you don't flag PVP, but dual instead. Whomever is defeated,they rez and collect their item lost at the grave marker in the arena.
But if you are in a PVP zone alone,you never know who might come across you and decide you are ripe for the picking. If this is the "gap" you see,then this one, I will have to agree with you,is not in your head. But,you do have control over it,by not flagging PVP,nor going into a PVP area.

 

Yep, thats "my gap" - i "need" or want to go there, because i roleplay a sort of a Researcher, studiying and curious about Ruins and Shardfalls

When i one day hit the 80 - i will think over to partake in C class - i liked the announcement so far, but i dont know if i can do it because of timezone and such.

Here's a Duell i won some month ago Level 60 versus level 64 i guess and we were both in walking mode
I now use some other skills and tactics
the video is taken by the oponent

 

Isn't this the blockbuster mentality? Can't SotA be successful without a million subscribers? A Tale in the Desert has been running successfully since 2003, but I'll bet most people here have never heard of it.

 

We all need to keep reminding ourselves that the population will vastly increase after release. No matter how we compare to others right now, we'll be way ahead of post-release newbies. That being said, for the roleplayer who builds their character slowly and through RP experiences there will always be grinders whizzing by.
As for the RP, I know a few who are still eagerly awaiting SotA's completion. I've little fear that Shroud of the Avatar will draw many.

 

Nice, I saw your fight around 2o minutes into the video, I will keep watching.

I roleplayed in a Roman guild back on Europa in UO around the year 2000 and we were at war with the orcs. The orcs would always win in battles but neither of us could ever hope to beat the PKs or the anti Pks that did not roleplay. These are 2 fundamentally different playstyles - we were limited to our roles and staying in char. They were not.

I still RP in SOTA, but as a member of the Serenite Army it is also my duty to grind and learn how to fight. Outside combat my RP stays the same. But as part of my story I must also do everything I can to learn how to fight without restriction. This approach has allowed me to remove some of the RP restrictions I had when I played a pure Roman. (leather chest, leather skirt, sandals and spear - haha I was a sheep to the non RP's for sure)

@Stundorn I like Drackenfels very much. I was recently exploring there and suggested to the people I met that we send representatives to each others towns. Maybe we can get some similar level players together to practice in a safe environment. we have maybe 4 or 5 players looking to break into PVP and they are also worried about not being able to compete. I think this is a mindset, if people want to fight then they learn to fight.

 

You just keep telling yourself that. I know nobody who is waiting for the game to release that has not already tried it. I know a few who are waiting for completion as a 'last chance' and a few who have tried and given up completely. The game has been live for nearly a year now. It was in the last Christmas steam sale. People know about it, they just aren't playing it.

 

Roleplaying takes a critical mass to do well. It's no surprise that there isn't much of it. Say what you will but the RP will thrive if/when enough good, solid roleplayers come this way. I think they will.

 

I have no idea what their operating budget it while developing the title, nor what it'll be once it launches, they wind down on the team and settle into maintaining a live game and slowly adding new content to keep players interested. Can it survive on a low number? The only answer I have to that is, "Who cares?"

Whatever that number is, we won't know it - they'd be fools to disclose it. What we DO know is that games make less money with less people playing them. Less money means tighter reins on how resources are allocated to the game. More money is good. Less money is bad. Settling for the minimal number to keep the game running isn't something you even want to mention - you, always, want as many people playing as possible so the game has the resources to be the best it can be.

 

MMO's do not forget how to RP - they know exactly what their players want, and deliver it to them. Relative to the entire base of gamers, people that want a deep, true roleplay experience don't exist. They are too few in number to justify a release catered specifically to them and, even if that came out, non-RPers would jump in and play anyway (if the game was good) causing the same problems we see in every other game towards the hardcore RP community.

Roleplay doesn't mean 100% commitment to staying in character. Sometimes it just means jumping into a setting you enjoy and committing mass genocide with friends for <who cares what the reason is>.

 

Lets hope you are right.

 

SotA still has an identity crisis that divides the community and confuses new players. Is it a MMORPG? Is it a single-player RPG? Is it a sandbox? Is it a PVP- or PVE-game? Is it a themepark? SotA caters to so many different types of gamers who all expect different things.
MMORPG players expect lots of group content. PVP players expect lots of great, meaningful PVP with risk vs reward. Sandbox players expect lots of freedom and a functional player driven economy. Themepark players expect lots of quests and epic loot. Single-player fans expect a great, meaningful story with good quests, choices with consequences and being able to change the world, achieve something.

Many of those expectations are not "compatible" and players fear that they have to accept too many compromises. So many compromises that the things they enjoy are no longer fun.

And lets face it, we see those compromises everywhere. PVP-players are better off with other games, single-player fans are better off with other games... There are games that have better graphics, there are games that offer a better sandbox- or themepark-experience...

SotA is a niche game that not only caters to a rather small audience but to an audience that is willing to accept a lot of compromises. I don't know how big this audience will be in the end but I think it won't be that big...

 

I feel you're going back and forth between two contradictory ideas.

Yes, I think you're 100% right -- role-play doesn't mean commitment to staying in character -- it means jumping in a setting and playing in a character role that has limits, and where there are consequences to your actions. Immersion, atmosphere, meaningful interaction with the world, some amount of realism and consequence. Relative to the entire base of gamers, is there a market for this? Yes, which we can see in games like Skyrim and Witcher 3.

For me a "deep, true roleplay" experience would mean a game that creates that type of setting as best as possible. That doesn't necessarily have to be limited to combat and fighting. People who play Skyrim for example also like going around a city and practicing thieving, breaking into buildings, roaming the countryside and gathering materials, diving underwater to find treasures, solving puzzles in dungeons. *Potentially*, player-player interactions could also be rich in this regard, and enticing from a gameplay perspective. Whether that means PvP combat, or contests, or other group activities which actually provide players something to do or something to look forward to in terms of immersing themselves in the setting.

But some people mean by roleplay, "social roleplay," and this often just ends up being *cosplay* like putting on wings and masks and writing backstories and attending parties in game, and that isn't really the same thing, and I think the attraction to a broad base of players for this type of thing is overstated.

 

agree - to me it's the best "sanbox" online RPG i can imagine to roleplay like i like to roleplay in online games.
I hope there will over time some more (germanspeaking) roleplayers who define or rp like i want and like it to do.

Meet in your designed PoT/ House/ Setting, RP in local chat, emote, smoke a pipe, sat down (i remember the concern you cannot sit down on a chair for 10+ years in games after UO), drink, belch... play some music... whatever and then go out and explore a scene, hunt for this or that (need to be improved) and in the meanwhile RP further, take a break, immerse, explore, fight, search, investigate (need more things to do that /incentives) and if you are done go back home, sit down, rp, talk about what you have researched or found and where it will lead you the next day!
Farm, brew, craft, make music, debate, discuss, duell... enlive the environment with your character.
Thats the way i have fun playing RPG's

btw where are the Guards of Trins... Brittany?!


SotA need some more "content" to serve to this playstyle, but i dont know any other game which is able to do it and has already a lot of features to do so.

 

You want to be as viable in a zone as someone who spends 2x more time than you in the game? Its like anything else you get what you put into it. If you want to be a top end player your going to need to put in the time and effort. If you cant theres no reason to punish others because youve got other things you need to do. I work a full time job, ive got 2 kids and i intend to kill corp por one day. To do that i need to bust my ass grinding the xp away in the skills i'll need to beat him. I dont want him to be nerfed down to my level because that wouldnt be an achievement for me. I want to get there and I want it to mean something. Casual players online need to focus their time and be efficient. I cant compete with pros in csgo because i dont spend 60 hours a week playing / watching replays and scrimming. Thats just how its going to be.