Goodbye SotA

Safe travels!

 

See you on the other side. ( game)

 

Sorry to see you go. I hope you find what you are looking for.

 

Best of luck finding good things out there, and better yet somewhat further on finding things here have come around to draw you back. Thoughtful, well-mannered posts have earned you respect such that I shall look forward to your return should things improve here for you, good Sir.

 

Wow, I drop in on the forums after forever and see this at the top.

Welcome to the ether Sir Cabirus. We all float down here.

 

Well, as I saw this message I felt sadness ...

1. I met a lot of people, excited of SotA and especially of the Solopart and who were disappointed about the direction of development ...
2. I met Sir Cabirus on the forum and I was happy to find his Ultima Website, made with so much love and devotion to this game ...

What I want to express at this point for everybody who don't or won't understand about the reason for people's dissapointment:
What people, who played Ultima (from part III until part IX), expect(ed) from an Ultima successor, isn't/wasn't about impossible things inside the game!

It is and was about possible things, we have had years before.
To make it short: things, giving a very special sense of feeling ... call it the "Spirit of Ultima!".

For a better understanding and driven by Sir Cabirus' Guide through Ultima VII(!) I started to play Ultima VII.
Yes, there is something, when you start this game, giving a feeling of an interesting story (more as "jump'n run and fight" feeling!).
And to be honest: yes, a few things, how the story goes, can be found in SotA. But not as much as necessary to give the continuous feeling ...

It doesn't mean, SotA hasn't good things onboard, no, it just means: a few things, people expected from a real Ultima VII Successor are still missing.

And yes, also some small things, like a "bag mode"! And they really don't want to hear 5 to 12 before launch, it couldn't be done - after it was said the Solo Offline mode will receive polish in the "last 20%" and after 100+1 houses and 100+1 items were created to place inside ...

Sometimes there was a "copy&paste" from WOW, like the health and focus state ... Why?
Things have been done better in --> 2013! I know, I am repeating things I said before, but, may be because sometimes it feels (for a lot of people, I assume) it isn't heard? No complicate things at all! Most of them are really easy

I talked with Sir Cabirus last year and we came to the point, it would have been done better, to implement the storyline and offline mode first and put the online mode after ... the storyline could have been fixed and after that more enemies, wardrobe and consumer goods could have been implemented.
The way, as we know, was another.
Well, I didn't and don't expect, what a lot of Ultima fans expect(ed), who played Ultima VII a lot of times (as I said before, I didn't in the past).
But I really understand, what they are -still- missing.

And at last, in the name of all Virtues, @Lord British:
May be, Episode II will be started by reflection HOW the story of Ultima VII was working? And I am sure, it IS possible to do it the same way.
It would really improve the online part ...

May be this needs a better quest writing tool? Okay, I believe you can fix it, so the bugs of quests can be fixed faster as possible in the past ...
This would give more time to do other things

And I believe, a lot of couraged people would come back to play the game, if the heart of Ultima would be reborn ...

The decision to dispense on POT in offline mode was the right direction. About the bag mode you should also reflect (there are ways to fix it -->).

And if the spirit of good old Ultima would come back to life, not only old fans would come back, I believe a lot of new fans would rise, tired of fighting and fighting, and grinding, and ... what all online games provide - missing a virtuous idea and hearty storytelling ...

And that's I am also sad of: There are really good quest parts, there are really atmospheric moments (House on the Hills in Harvest, for example), but a lot of players will never met them, because they quit after the story introduction,

tired of text flashes (what have I clicked?) Well, this word inside the text?
Moment: it is still highlighted on the bottom ... ehm ... (no, a lot of words are really NOT highlighted by design! They provide NO further information!)
What did (s)he say? Clicking through the Journal - what path was it?
What should I do next? Moment?
In the name of the Oracle - I am sparkled to death ...
Unplug that sparkle machine! Show me in an easy way what someone tells and told before ...
Don't show me keywords double! Underlined words inside the text and at the bottom highlighted! One time is really enough. The underlined words lead to an impaired reading fluency! I want to concentrate on the story. And please don't show "Player X is now ON", while I am trying to dive into the story!
And don't let words "jump" back to the left side if I asked about them before! It's awful distracting

highlighted One time really enough Underlined words the text lead to an impaired reading fluency on the story word inside distracting Farewell

I am still hoping for a polish of the quest writing tools and Story presentation on screen to provide what this game and story deserves ... and last but not least all the backers, who are expecting the "Spirit of Ultima" To prevent disappointment and 100+1 bug reports for the same bug over months ...

Farewell, Sir Cabirus, we will miss you!
Hoping for a comeback, after all these things are polished in future

 

That is a neat post @Paladin Michael. I didn't know about Cabrius' site, but just checked it out and love the early Ultima histories. I just ran the history through Google Translate for English, and like the details of Ultima I-III and the music. I only played Ultima I (all the way through to the defeat of Mondain) and part of Ultima III, but there is a gap in my Ultima knowledge from Ultima IV-IX as I skipped over them to UO. I like to read comments from players like you to try to understand what I missed. I like how you and Cabrius have isolated the "spirit" of the games. One can see when looking at the history of the games that Garriott was experimenting and making changes, but the spirit seems intact. I'm not much younger than him, so I played a lot of fantasy games at the time and was immersed in the medieval computing phenomenon of the era, so I get the magical "feel" of the time, and Ultima was the best at isolating this feeling. Your post deserves a thread on its own, as I think Richard needs a reminder, needs to re-connect with this old feeling. I also think the bag mode can be fixed, and that the storyline can be fixed, but because he chose to merge two different types of games, along with *ehm* "experimental economic systems", the complex logistics limited the story mechanism. If he was going to do this, he should have come up with a more workable story mechanism. As we know, Richard was influenced by Tolkien/Campbell, but to me Jules Verne showed how it can be done: Your story emerges from the shape of the environment you find yourself in, which might seem random, but it is the effect of causes with goals. As you investigate a seemingly random land (kind of like a crime scene), you determine what happened, why the land is the way it is, and piece the story together in your mind. And this story can be shaped procedurally, via simulation, it doesn't have to be hand-written so much as it can simply be guided, or overseen. In Journey to Center of the Earth, the adventurers followed in the footsteps of a missing scientist. The scientist didn't craft a story for the adventurers, he simply went about his way and left clues. The adventure, and story, was what what happened to the team, Us, as we investigated and followed those clues.

It's ironic, being a goodbye thread, that it's the passion in posts like this that still give me hope.

 

OK I will remove you as a rune from rune list

I think you were on it, I must admit I am paying more attention to where I want to go