UO Beta vs SotA Beta

The difference between playing a beta and playing a pre-alpha is that the beta, despite the bugs, is content & feature complete.

Compare UO to SotA all you want; you ain’t playing a beta right now.

 

Since they will continually add content, SotA will never be content complete, so I guess it would never be considered beta.

 

You could still say Episode 1 "content complete"

in fact the devs said we were story complete already, not a big stretch...

Being in alpha for 4+ years now that sounds bad from an outside perspective

 

It's not alpha. In fact, that's not their development model at all, which is why they switched it to "pre-release", and it'll be pre-release until they deem it worthy of release.

 

But these are just terms to designate pre-release phases in any developpement, its an approximation with often beta being the moment a larger test population is allowed in...

So release is Gamma...

 

But I get what you mean by different, we sure went into persistence in the alpha phase... I've never seen that before

 

UO was released with many major issues.. yep..

The difference is:
UO was "the first" real mmorpg game.. and it was 1996...

I think it absolutely makes no sense to compare UO/sota when it comes to technical or readyness issues.. UO had problems for YEARS we would never accept in a new game.. Like the laag.

 

Right now the best comparison is... *drum rolls* Ultima 9 !

Maybe the name will change to : Ultima Online 9 !, or we skip 9 and go straight to 10 because its the trend right now

 

You can still add content after a game goes gold*; that's how nearly every digital product does it. At that point, your product is ready for public consumption. You may be confused due to the fact that you've been playing the game while it's being worked on.

If you think we'll continue to get monthly updates and content after the game is released, you're in for a shock. They'll sprinkle a few things here and there but most of their attention would then be on Episode 2.

Maybe it sounds bad for people who don't know (or shouldn't know) anything about development but that's actually pretty standard. You don't hit Beta until you've done the entire game. In some cases, it goes Beta a month or even a week before it goes gold*.

Beta is only a period where they dedicate their time into testing and fixing bugs; the line is pretty clearly defined and there shouldn't be any confusion to the public as to when a game is/isn't in Beta. If you had a product that was in Beta for more than a single year, that's where I'd be worried.

* "gold" is when you send your game to a "printer" to get it published online and/or on disk/cartridge. "First day patches", an issue we have less and less of a problem with, happen when they fix something after they already sent the game for publication. That's why, in old games, some publishers would just throw in a "patch disk" in the box because it was cheaper to do that than to reprint everything.

 

lol agreed, I've tried to explain the fact many times since a few years and put an end to alot of threads that accused the devs of many things, including drinking and not being able to deliver on the kickstarter time frame.

I also much prefer we wait for a good release, also that the devs have fun while doing it and not feel pressure like with EA.

Fact remains its kind of convoluted to call this agile developpement, only serves to confuse people.

After watching the Ultima 9 spoony videos again (they're great) I wonder what he would have to say about the state of our game/continuity right now... I'm quite surprised he didn't do a video, did he sign a non-complaining clause in exchange for his interview ?

I'm just a nerd lol...

 

Last time I checked, he essentially quit making review videos and moved on to other things.

Another thing I wanted to touch on was this:

"Story complete" is not the same as "content/feature complete"; one is about setting up the game to react to triggers (what is the proper response based on your quest progression), while the other is having most of it tuned/balanced to have an engaging and fun experience.

In layman's terms, "Story complete" is a yes or no to "Can players complete it?" and has nothing to do with "is it fun?"

 

Subscribed to his feed, I get updates and reviews and new videos from his sometimes many times a week. Sounds like he moved on from SOTA...

Yup that is why I used the distinction, story complete but requires polish, isn't "complete" so we could use the same term for "content complete" and at least it would give an idea to people what they can expect from release.

 

True, but only as publisher.
Origin had nearly full control of UO until Richard left and founded something else.

EA messed things up with UO once they started to take over in 2000 (that's where Richard left and that's where the World was split in Trammel and Felucca *cough*), and they even messed up more stuff once EA decided to jump in as an developer in the year 2004 till 2006.

So, in theory, everyone is right here, the game was fine up until EA decided to take the scepter in their hands...
So yeah, really, people who said/say that EA "took" over UO and weren't really involved in the development of UO up until 2000 were/are also right.

 

Er war es.
https://community.crowfall.com/topi...brought-us-trammel/?tab=comments#comment-1610

 

Very good link and i want to copy/paste one sentence out of that thread:
Remember that EA at that time was a packaged game company and they culturally only understood launching new products, not running live ones.

So again, EA didn't do anything for the development of UO pre year 2000.

 

Wow Grreat forum ! Very insightful posts that are being mirrored here...

It's great to see a crowdfunded game where someone posts a very emotionally involved concern and is replied to on the same day by a lead dev, with 100% honesty and care to settle the concerns of their own community

I like how they understand what a niche game means and how you mold your game to the niche and not force players to accept a watered down gameplay to reach the wider audience.

 

Enlightenment...... for the early days of UO and of EA's early involvement. 17:42 starts as related.

 

Ok what i actually was trying to say is, EA didn't develop UO pre 2000.
Of course they were involved... but they didn't develop it.

 

Didn't mean to imply otherwise.. but as publisher they still forced it out the door before it was ready and Origin had to cope. Origin was doing a pretty good job otherwise.

and history repeated itself over.. and over.. and over.. and over.. an...

 

I have not issues with the way development is going. I do believe this will be successful or I would not be playing and investing.

I have no issues with the present penalty on death. yeah it sucks when you have a lot of GM's that you could lose, but it works for me. I try not to die ever if I can avoid it. doesn't mean I play safe at all just means I don't try to do things that I know I can't alone. Sure it takes time to get them back so what... time is all we have

Crafting has recipes everywhere, and some only teachable or tradable, others drop only. I have no issues with that. I spend 90% of my time crafting and still looking for some that I don't have. Does it impede my progress no... just means I cant make certain things until I find them.

as to crafting materials, I like that it requires a lot of things, and gathering to make. I don't want to see everything just handed to people to mass produce. does it take time, hell yeah. But I am not the type that wants everything now and handed to them. I play when I can a little more than casual.

Most complain about money... same people that complain about things taking too long to get. Again money is not really an issue, but with items being rare prices are high so I can understand that it could take a few days or week to save enough to get one item people want. spending that large amount mentally breaks some. But truth be told 1 hour can net 5k easy plus free 500gold / day. Looking that the numbers its easy to make money if you know where to make it...

I do think though that a little more money here and there for things would be nice to make it easier for all, but I don't want to see too much gold in game to the point where prices climb further. If they do introduce easier gold then need to balance it with item decay to keep things moving forward. items should eventually break if not take care of and not be repairable if they hit that point. I say this because I sell +10 - +17 crafted weapons and once you get a good one there is no need to ever upgrade again. so imo I should just sell top items very high known that customers that buy them will not buy again. I instead sell cheap which has hurt myself, but I am trying to cater to those that complain about cash flow so there is no win/win from my prospective.