"Story Release" End of July? Is it ready? I don't think so. Do you?

Discussion in 'Quests & Lore' started by Vyrin, Jun 11, 2017.

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  1. Vyrin

    Vyrin Avatar

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    I am very concerned about the state of the story after completing the Path of Love. A lot of hard work has gone into it as of late and it is supposed to be the most polished path right now. There is only a month-and-a-half until story release. (I provide more detailed feedback in the R42 feedback forum.)

    Here are my main concerns, which are pretty comprehensive:

    1) The dialogue is spare with key characters.

    2) Because of 1, it is very hard to understand what is really going on. Things are hinted at that are never explained.

    For example, what happened in Drachvald that launched Anapa on his conquest? Why did the titans create a "heart"? Why are Anapa and Sequanna in conflict and what did their conflict look like? You get hints of an answer but nothing close to a full understanding.

    3) Because of 1, the characters are very flat and difficult to connect to.

    4) The keyword system leads to disjointed, out of order conversations. Some trigger responses that are completely out of context. Stories are told backwards and every which way.

    5) Trying to worry about triggering all the keywords takes your mind out of the story.

    6) There are still many bugs and improper triggers.

    7) The story does not have a build-up that leads to the final confrontation.

    You have no idea of Anapa until almost the end of the path. You know he is responsible for the undead, but what is he doing in Malice? Why did he start down this path? Does he have any more depth than just, "Kill! Kill everything!"? When you arrive in Malice, before you really even know what Anapa is about, Samael says, "ok, let's go kill him!" Wait! Why?

    8) You as the avatar do very little to resolve the quest.

    The true hero of the quest is Samael. He is so important somehow that Anapa can use him as a pawn to trap Sequanna. Then when he discovers this, he frees Sequanna. You have no involvement. You are muscle basically. Your only contribution is taking out Anapa.

    9) The final resolution of the conflict is anti-climatic.

    All Samael has to do is change how he views his dead wife's ring. A profound personal transformation perhaps, but a force powerful to bind Sequanna? Could be cool if you had actually worked to try to convince Samael out of his regret, but he comes to it all on his own.

    10) There are contradictions in the way the quest unfolds.

    Samael tells you at the entrance to Malice, with no effort on your part, that you allowed him to let go of the regret swirling around his dead wife. Yet to free Sequanna, he has to let go again. I guess it's a case of "Once more, with feeling!"

    11) You gain nothing valuable other than XP and the normal simple loot from killing monsters. Not even a Malice t-shirt souvenir.

    Furthermore, because of the MMO nature of the game, completing the quest has no impact on the world, leading the story to feel even more inconsequential and weak. But that is a design decision that can't be changed so not really a matter of argument. But it underscores the importance of having a really solid story that unfolds well as you go down the paths.

    So what does "story release" actually mean? Is it more like "story persistence" where you can play through them and your progress is permanent but they are not finalized? I can't see the story being considered "complete" by any stretch of the imagination at the end of July.

    I know many are avoiding the quests until they are complete. It's fair, but I think it's also led to a lack of testing.

    With this post, I am hoping that I get proved wrong. Please comment on the specific points here only if you've completed one path in the story.
     
    Last edited: Jun 11, 2017
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  2. Alexander

    Alexander Avatar

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    You have absolutely no idea how crushed I was when I didn't receive a Malice t-shirt at the end of the quest. Must be a bug :D.
    I'm surprised that point 6 is still happening. Point 3 always concerned me.
     
  3. Vyrin

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    As an example, one of them happens right at the point of resolving the whole path.

    When Sequanna is freed you are left confused as to what's next. Only when you say farewell, does she stop and say, "ask me about your destiny!" So I did 3 times. And 3 times it triggered the pre-released Sequanna response. Finally, for a reason I can not figure out, using "destiny" actually completed the path. Not a small bug.

    I consider bugs all those things that are explained wrong in the dialog. There are quite a few.

    When you meet Yama on Malice, he tells you you need to hire a spirit talker. You don't actually, Samael will accompany you automatically and is inside waiting for you. There are many more example of this.
     
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  4. Vyrin

    Vyrin Avatar

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    I guess I could state some ideas here. The t-shirt wasn't off base because a nice reward would be a cosmetic item. Like what about a non-tradeable, "Cape of King Anapa"? Non-tradeable cosmetic items wouldn't wreck the economy.
     
  5. Alexander

    Alexander Avatar

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    Edit: I see you entered a bug report concerning the key word destiny not too long ago.

    In general, we are getting too close to the end to see stuff like this happening.
     
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  6. Drocis the Devious

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    From what little I've seen, I'd say that story isn't polished enough to "release it".

    However, if you read and listen to what Richard is actually saying, the story will for the first time be able to be "completed" from end to end. I don't think he's saying it's polished or perfect.

    Should they call it a "release"? I wouldn't. But it is what it is.
     
  7. Alexander

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    I haven't watched the video, but thank you for that bit of info. If they get this polished by years end, then great. But some of Vyrins other points should be considered as well and hopefully will be addressed.
     
  8. Drocis the Devious

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    Yeah, absolutely. All of Vyrin's points are good ones. I've seen him posting bug reports, and participating in the forums with @Lum the Mad and others to make the story the best it can be.

    My experience has been that Lum is very protective of the story, dialogue, and overall direction of the main quest line. Sometimes it's impossible to tell if he's just trying to keep spoilers out of the public eye, doesn't appreciate the feedback being given, or is so swamped that he can't really action much that is provided by the fans. I've pretty much given up on providing feedback for the main quest line and the new player experience though.

    I rarely perform quests now either. In part because they're frustrating and because I know it's likely I'll get stuck somewhere and be unable to finish. That's really difficult if you're trying to test because chances are you're not going to know if what you're seeing is by design or just a bug. The QA feedback loop for the main quest line has been broken for some time, imo. I'm not sure who's fault that is (maybe no one's) but it's disappointing from a fan standpoint.

    Oh well, hopefully they get it all sorted out, because when it's "released" I'll probably give it another go, even if that only means I can complete the whole thing for once.
     
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  9. Vladamir Begemot

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    Hate the NPC dialog window, really don't want to be squinting the whole time.

    Not impressed with them doing the story while one day hoping to put in emotes to help with the emotions.

    Just from a writing perspective I think this book is a gem: Creating Emotions In Games

    [​IMG]
     
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  10. Bubonic

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    I have specifically avoided the story in hopes that, when complete, its awesome.

    This post isn't filling me with confidence :/
     
  11. Widsith [MGT]

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    I completed the Love quest 3 (?) releases ago, and went about halfway through Courage on QA a couple releases back. At that point Love felt - sparse, let's say - in terms of the contextual clues and interaction with characters. Some of that stemmed from story line choices that seemed odd

    such as putting an essential step in a a PvP zone, then providing an alternate entry, but with no clues to its existence other than in the Forum - I found it by accident while messing around in Kiln. Then, once you are into the crypt, you only need a couple - oddly sequenced - interactions right at the entrance rather than doing anything with a big juicy dungeon.

    The conclusion of the Love quest was pretty good even then, so I have hope. I've stopped chasing story line quests in hope things will improve and it'll be a satisfying experience when the day comes.

    My biggest concern is that the tech related to the story line seems quite fragile. Do we have anything other than a minimal GUI over a Zork style word guessing game? I've seem a casual reference to 'story state' or something similar on the forum. Maybe we're looking at something like an FSA (click for geekery) but that is a very limited model. UI has gone from character graphics to complaining because we can't get 4K to run at a good frame rate - story seems stuck in a prior age.
     
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  12. Drocis the Devious

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    Not trying to go back and forth with anyone here. But this is a really good point and also a really good misconception.

    The tech DOES seem unstable/unreliable and it impacts the experience for sure. But as for making the story seem stuck in a prior age, I disagree. Good story is good story in any age, and from my point of view (and Patrick Rothfuss seems to agree, so you guys feel free to argue with him. :) ) Games like Witcher 3 that have been held up as the new "gold standard" for RPG's are really nothing more than what SOTA has with better graphics and voice acting. It's really not debatable if this is the case, if you strip away the tech from Witcher 3 you have a very long version of SOTA.

    My point though is that the story and how players interact with it, is key. Even more so when you have tech that's not super shiny and doesn't tuck you into bed at night as you click through 100 cut scenes that were going to happen regardless of the choices you made (yes, this is another reference to Witcher 3, and almost any modern RPG - Pillars of Eternity and Wasteland II included).

    For me the real challenge at this point (beyond the obvious need to fix all the bugs) is to find a way to allow players to make choices that matter and impact the world in a meaningful way. If it were me, I'd tally up all the players that made virtuous choices vs. all the ones that made anti-virtuous choices and I'd begin episode II based on the conclusion of the collective choices that were made. I'd also have alternative endings to the story for single player mode, while leaving the door open to explain how EP2 might not begin the way the Avatar would expect based on their actions in EP1.
     
  13. Vladamir Begemot

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    Yep! Without the tech Tolkien could be writing the story and we'd be unimpressed.
     
  14. Carlin the Druid Archer

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    I'm also very worried about the state of the story... if it's anything like when I played through the LOVE quest a couple of months ago then this doesn't bode well. I didn't connect to characters at all. The old Ultima 6 and 7 with the portraits and we'll written quests/story was so much more compelling. :-(
     
  15. MrBlight

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    Best story feedback ive seen on forum in a while.
    Good job.

    Im guilty of going through the quests, and not getting pulled in, even the slightest. Burned through it very quickly.. and had bugs in dialogues that were so glaring i didnt even file bug reports.

    I hope for more effort in them and the polishs... but honestly im more of a mmo fan so i know im biased.

    Personally i want some small side quests to break up the grind. I could literally make up 20 that would break upthe grind, that could easily be un related to main story, but it doesnt seem to me that who ever is in charge of that is near ready for repeatable side quests.
    Oh well.

    Keep up the good work op.
     
  16. Lord Tachys al`Fahn

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    This.

    This is what I was worried about before they even started really putting storyline quests in the game, from the moment they 'released' the novel to us in its pre-sales form, complete with the ridiculous amount of typos, mis-spellings, contextual and grammatical errors. Before I was no longer able to play the game (thank you release 42), I dabbled in the path of love, and aside from the grinding that was (I cannot confirm that it still is) necessary to follow the story because of the utter divorce between story and character progression, I find myself in agreement with every point @Vyrin

    It is disappointing in the extreme to know they think they are "story complete" enough to consider it ready for general consumption in just a few short weeks.
     
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  17. Cordelayne

    Cordelayne Bug Hunter

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    I am in full agreement with all the previous comments. This is the most important aspect of the game for me and in its current state it just stinks. As @MrBlight previously stated, I too rushed through them because they were a dreadful bore. No compelling virtue choices, lack of depth and superfluous tasks that just made the storyline even more convoluted and confusing.

    @Vyrin made a really good point in a comparable post he made, stating that the SotA story is really just a walking simulator/adventure and he's absolutely right. I hope Portalarium focuses more on this aspect of the game because currently, it is really awful.
     
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  18. Lord Tachys al`Fahn

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    Can't disagree more... Tolkien DID write without the "tech", and it did nothing to diminish my level of involvement with the story. ;)
     
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  19. Vladamir Begemot

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    Tolkien was allowed to say things like "Legolas looked sad."

    I don't think he would take up the challenge of writing the entire series using only dialog. This is something the sota writers are having to do.
     
  20. Bubonic

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    So true.
     
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