Release 51 Instructions

Will lich ring users also take damage from Elysian illumination?

 

I am not dead!

Good job guys!

 

Thank you for another awesome release, @DarkStarr ! All those polishing, contents adding and fixing really makes me feel like the official release date is drawing near. Hats off to all Portalarium devs for their hard work!

Personally I'm very much interested in Skill Specialization since current system is more like 'take time and be god', rather than 'choose your path whichever you like', However, I'd be appreciated if there is more detailed manual or explanation for new specialization system.(with some friendly pictures!)
I'm sure it'll come to us when R52 arrives, but wanted to point it out just in case.
Cheers!

 

Same question for the Banish Undead + Soothing Rain combo.

 

Thank you! I am one of those players looking forward to the offline mode.

 

I am actually regretting not putting in a PTO request for tomorrow.

 

cool stuff coming out, ps, serker effects damage resistance not damage avoidance.

 

So me and many others, including Warren Spector (who doesn't like MMOs and is clearly seen very happy when soloplayer is mentioned) are wrong?
It is the wording that matters. If there is a sentence that says "Though Shroud of the Avatar won't be a MMORPG but a multiplayer game" and if the game is described as a "bascially soloplayer experience with the option to play online" then this is a description of the game. Maybe they should have worded it differently, maybe they should have been more clear whatever. It was not the case. And money was charged for this description. It was misleading - not intentional, I don't say that. But it was misleading. The description wasn't clear enough and now this description will define the game. It will be reviewed as a "bascially soloplayer experience" because that was said back then. It won't be the only aspect of the game but it will play a significant part. Especially when the box of the cover says "Single Player RPG".

Even if those are just "partial sentences", they were mentioned during a time when they collected money. Those sentences played a part in why people gave money for the game. You can't ignore those sentences. Should they have been more careful back then? Maybe. But the damage is done.

Also, I am not so much on the fence about SotA also being a MMORPG but because this negatively affects the single-player part. How can you announce a "single-player narrative" and a "story-driven basically soloplayer experience" as well as state on the box of SotA that it is a "Single Player RPG", when this part is so lacking? When the MMO-part negatively influences the SP part? How can you say "choices with consequences" when nothing changes in the world and everything we do is for naught? How can you announce a "single-player narrative" with a presentation that consists of walls of text in a time in which low-budget RPGs show how this can be done in such exciting ways (Divinity: DOS 2 or Kingdom Come: Deliverance)? This is much more of a problem. Having also a MMORPG would be ok for me as long as it doesn't negatively influence the "basically soloplayer experience"... But it does.

But again, this is derailing this thread.

 

Just a question regarding the obsidian forge. Where can recipes for it be found, such as obsidian ingots, sheets, armor, weapons, weapon components?

Couldn't find anything on sotawiki about these.

 

they are scattered in containers throughout hilt fortress.

 

Another fantastic Release @DarkStarr @Lord British

Really looking forward to downloading the update when I get home later here in the UK and seeing the changes for myself.

While there are things that occasionally worry/bewilder me about some design/policy decisions concerning the game, I am really enjoying playing which must be the acid test of things. The game is moving in a very good direction right now with these latest releases which clearly take a huge amount of time, effort ( and no doubt blood, sweat and tears !) to bring about from our small but dedicated dev team.

Many thanks and keep up the good work !

 

Look, I don't think that this thread is the place for such a debate, but I don't want you feel like there is a censorship about this subject, either. Then, I will try to give my point of view in the most open way possible but don't take it wrong : I can not afford to reply here after that, so if you want to continue the discussion, I encourage you to do it in private or in a more appropriate part of this forum.

Since your very first post I read, it was clear to me that the experience of a solo game was important to you. It's even an understatement. And that's ok : yes, there are many people who were waiting for a solo experience with the same quality as with the Ultima series. I am one of those people for whom immersion and quests are highly anticipated. Just like you, I don't like fedex quests very much and I am not satisfied that important features are still missing for the narration (give those NPCs some emotes if you don't want to rely on text to show their attitude). One of my first PC games was Ultima VII, and back to those days, I was admiring the ingenuity of those who built Britannia as a credible and living world. Like you, like @Sir Cabirus, and like many others, I wanted to find everything that made the charm of this game, and other games before it. Look at my thread here if you have any doubt about that. I speak openly about that (which does not mean that I'm always right in what I say, by the way).

So why, if I share your opinion on the solo part's importance, I (and many others) don't share the same complains as you? There are several reasons for this :

• First, the game was never presented as a solo game nor a MMO game, but as a selective multiplayer game. You can try to start a war of words if you like but the intention has always been to introduce a new genre, which allows the player to select what mode he wants to play : solo offline without any DRM, solo online, friends (and party) online or multiplayer online. Each of those modes exists in the game and allows everyone to adapt the game to their own way of playing. I don't say that each mode is a success, I only say that the base feature is built : if you want to play a MMO, the game has the multiplayer mode ; if you want to experience the game alone, you have the solo offline or solo online modes ; if you want to experience a "co-op" game, you have the friends online mode. So no one ever said that SotA would never be an MMO or a solo game. The fact is that it is a bit of everything at once and that is the whole difficulty for Portalarium. I think that even if you do not agree with that, it is an indisputable fact. And the funny thing is that the French site "The legend of Ultima" already said in 2013 apr the 2th, shortly before the end of the kickstarter, that the stretch goals were too much oriented toward the MMO part of the game. This is new evidence, if any, that no one could legitimately believe that SotA would not have an MMO mode. Now I can say that there are people who, unlike you, are also waiting for improvements on the MMO side, ESPECIALLY with pvp and rvr (@Chris @DarkStarr *hints* *hints*). The problem here is not the design choices for the game, but the level of finishing, obviously. That's the reason why I first thought that the launch date was too premature. But the more I think about it, the more I understand the reasons behind their choice.

• Secondly, I agree with you. We have some fedex quests in SotA. But SotA is not all about fedex quests and Ultima VII had some too !! Do you remember when Batlin requested you some transportation of a sealed box to Minoc ? Do you remember when Taylor tells you to bring honey to the emps, and send you to the Bee Cave to find some ? Most quests in most RPGs have always required to go from point A to point B with something in your inventory. Of course, the Ultima VII quests were linked together in a whole plot and we don't know exactly how it will materialize with SotA. I wonder if you already played SotA and tried the quests ? I did, and I "finished" the main story. I think that I remember a post of you which says that you did it too, and that it gave you some hopes, but I can be wrong and I don't have time to look for it. Presently, I can say that there is also a story that links all these quests, even if the coherence is still diffuse. We don't know how the Cabalists are related to the story. We don't know why everyone can get the same damn artifacts from the Titans or the same piece of armor. Who build those ? How the Oracle is able to pay 500 gold coins to each of us ? That being said, we only have episode 1. Trying to judge SotA story here is a bit like judging the consistency of Ultima VII's story while you are stuck in Trinsic ! It's a biased exercise.

• Finaly, and most importantly, when this game was announced, @Lord British did not know in advance what budget it would have exactly in the long run. It's a very tricky situation. Look at That game. I know that one of the highest difficulty of the (small) developpment team was to adapt the specifications to the budget. To the point that they had to rely on an investor to pay the bills while this game was kickstarted back in 2015. It was the exact same story with Kingdome Come Delivrance or Divinity 1 Original Sin (and almost every piece of single/co-op player game which was kickstarted). Now, back to SotA, imagine that if @Lord British wants to carry out his project while keeping control over it (and avoid resorting to an investor which would necessarily limit the possibilities), he must succeed in making promises sufficiently enticing to obtain a budget from the backers AND reasonable to be achievable, all of this without knowing how much money he will get. If you look at what has been accomplished, everything is not perfect as he said himself, but the will to keep his promises is there, and observable in each aspect of the game. His team does not count the hours to add new things and fix bugs. @Chris "sometimes" is up at 4 in the morning, and @Attenwood "sometimes" go to bed at 3... in the morning. They read the forums and try to answer us as often as they can (Go on SWTOR forums to compare lol). Really, without wanting to flatter anyone, we can not say that everything has always been easy for the Portalarium's staff. I'm not technically competent enough, but it seems to me that they have done a lot of work with the housing system, the graphic improvements (!), the writing of the many dialogues, the creation of new sounds (remember the sound of the bow, 15 releases earlier), shaping new zones, creating and balancing the combat system, the improvement of the crafting system, character animation (this one is for you, among others, @matpsch ), etc... and even optimizations (optimizations which are improving the game in its single player mode too).

To summarize everything here, just like you, I would like that NPCs could have much more credible behaviours (no guard teleporting on me like with Ultima 8, for exemple), I would like to see real consequences to my actions in the game, I would like more immersion, I would like MOAR, etc... And even if I can admit that I would not have play this game for 3 000 hours if it was not for the multiplayer part, I can tell that I enjoyed many quests in this game, even when doing them alone. Some involved great puzzles, other involved tricky choices. Then, unlike you, I don't think that the MMO part of SotA is the problem for the solo experience. I even think that if we give them time, developers will dramatically improve storytelling. Of course, I know that this game has already had almost 5 years of development, but things can't be counted this simple way. 5 years with an average team of 25 people, it's often less than 2 years old with an average team of 60 people, you know. But whatever, to be very clear, this game would never have collected its current budget without having its multiplayer mode (and the fancy store) and it would have been impossible anyway to do otherwise. Kingdome Come Deliverance, Lords of Mayhem, Divinity, each of these kickstarted games has existed and thrived through investments that did not come from players. It means that if the solo experience in SotA reaches what you expect one day, it would be thank to the multiplayer part of the game. That does not mean that you absolutely have to play this game in multiplayer mode. This means that this game lives thanks to the multiplayer community and the 30 developpers who currently work on each scene, quest, item, and gameplay mechanism.

Obviously, this opinion is only binding I, me and myself. You can continue to gossip uselessly on this forum, to report all the flaws that this game can have (and some with which everyone agrees). But I just wanted to let you know that you also can find a more constructive way to use your time : report bugs, continue to give good feedback in a respectful way while keeping in mind that we just can't have everything immediatly with the way the world turns to be.

 

Maybe you are right. Maybe I expected too much. I also think it is not really worth it being so upset anymore. It is what it is... can't change it anymore.

 

Such a short small mention but this is HUGE. It will save so much time shopping when I see a vendor sitting down (or a dark cash register). I love this! I also love the ability to HAVE a cash register! I'm so excited for this one change and it's only one small part of this jam packed release.

@Chris @DarkStarr the entire Dev team and especially @Lord British for his vision: thank you from the bottom of my heart for this incredible world you have built for us, with us. I look forward to enjoying it for many many years to come! *raises a cup of tea in your honor*

Oh, can we get non-daemon tea soon? I have thousands of tea leaves waiting to be used...

 

What is that red ball in the sky? Its almost as big as the moon? Ominous... mysterious!

 

Checking on Daemon Tea vs Regular Tea! JIRA!!!

 

"Candygram"

 

Oh no... I think I'm starting to get sick at work *cough cough*. I think once the servers are back up I will have to leave work so I can get better. I may have to also spend tomorrow at home online in SOTA in bed feeling better .

 

Oh man... I have so many wiseacre (funny, but not mean) replies to this. @Berek would be moderating so hard he'd sleep for a week afterward.