Open interview about SotA

I really don't want to get into the "war" between sides, but my 5 cents: I have been following the project since the beginning and I remember the one troll in the Kickstarter comment section. THAT was a problem. He or she annoyed me so much. Spewing nonsense when the project hasn't even started yet.

Later on my honest opinion is that the people who defended the game by attacking, insulting and just in general being super nasty to critics hurt the game more than any troll ever could.
Darkmoons articles are harmless compared to what was going on in that direction. People seeing fans of SotA being complete ****heads is what turns people off. It's a small community and seeing people of this small community behaving badly makes people not want to be part of it.

edit: There is one person you could call troll out there who posts everywhere about the shortcomings of the project which might actually harm SotA by keeping people from even trying the game. I can see fans and devs rightfully being annoyed by him.

Ok I am out again.... I just want to have fun in the game.

I hope the devs do the right thing and just answer the questions, so we can move on.

 

I finally read through all his questions, I think they are fine to answer. They are pretty much gonna be within the realm of "I agree/disagree with abc because of XYZ..."

As long as they take their time to reply and just be frank about it, I would be fine with however they do it.

No need to spin these questions into something more than it would be.

 

There is nothing new in the questions... They've all been answered before.
Why should DarkStarr and Lord British be bothered to repeat their answers? They've more important things to do.
If Lord Darkmoon wishes to have Developer answers, he should submit them for the Telethon just like the rest of us.

 

maybe the Devs. will reply!! My opinion is that the "backers" want return on their investment and the sure fire way is to develope to the masses instead of the singles.(politics and money). BTW " the "Truth" does set you free it actually alienates

 

If they don't want to answer, then fine. I would be happy to hear the answers and some others probably, too. But if they don't want to answer then this is totally ok.

 

Here in lies your problem and why players and other might call you posts skewed - question 1 - 13 all about the SP mode, yes it was important but not much anymore. Not invalid which it is just not a priority, and I applaud you for sticking to your gunz.

They have actually lied about a few things - sold tings and changed them after sale, some are still "in the works" So you concerns and POV is valid.

Questions 14, 15, 16, 17, 18 are what is really the major problems that players are starting to see going wrong.

Like you they have been so marginalized and brow beaten when they try and bring it up that they have just stopped trying and are now posting on other sites.

Good luck on getting real answers, you are trying to figure out how that delivering 99% is acceptable from their POV when it is still 100% failure.

 

Very good questions OP. Be strong please as I notice some people railing against the answering of them. I would hope a developer would step in and answer them, or even better, do a live interview.

 

and this all I want to say :

 

I agree with others who have said they don't find your posts trolly in general. You advocate for SP and "naturalism" in the game which is something that I appreciate. Though your posts on the new release were rude.

Looking through your list I think they have answered most of these questions. But maybe not to your satisfaction.

 

All the questions are years old and have been answered to my satisfaction by the combination of radio silence and "that's on the schedule for release ('current release' + 2)".

And such short term memories in these part, a whiff of criticism was all it took to get you labeled a Blizzard shill not so long ago.

You're lucky Darkmoon, you are still important enough to matter, us plebs were more or less driven off long ago.

 

Always amused by how some people are really full of themselves...gotta love it.

As an original kick starter hobbit in Bag End I talked with Gandalf over at Elrond's place - he had a LOT to say let me tell you. Don't take my word for it I got people working for me all over...you may have to translate from Vulcan but Google Translate should do the trick.

 

All great questions, but they aren't going to answer them. It doesn't do them any good, but appease a minority group of the playerbase. Sometimes you have to just see the writing on the wall.

The writing has been on the wall since the VERY early days when they decided to focus on housing and cosmetics soooooo very much. They seem more focused on designing an online "world" where people can socialize, "live" and spend (cash)money (on housing and decorations). The rest always felt like a low priority. To me, the key to an RPG should be the mechanics (combat) and the "world" ... both which always felt lackluster in this game.

They won't say it .. but it seems they abandoned the concept of a more "pure" single-player RPG because that (in their mind) doesn't sell as well as a MMORPG or keep people on the hook for long periods of time (tempting them to spend more money on cosmetics or buy more episodes). They made a business decision. That's fine, but that is the problem with these Kickstarters. They over-promise in the beginning to draw in as MANY people as possible. It feels scummy .. but it works. The concept and "stretch" goals of most Kickstarter games make it sound like the "perfect" game (in whatever genre). To me, its why we should go back to the traditional model of a developer fronting their own money to build a game and bring it to market good enough to sell on its own merit. Do we really think SOTA could be sold that way?

Let's be honest, they "marketed" the game really well during the kickstarter campaign and a lot of us spent money on nostalgia. Modern Ultima On-line? Modern Ultima 7 that I can play co-op with friends? Awesome!

They lost me a long time ago (not because of the state of the game .. but the obvious direction away from a Ultima-like RPG). I may check it out after launch, but frankly I don't see it drawing me in like I hoped it would when I backed it OH so long ago. I just don't see it happening like WoW did or like the old Ultima. For me, it is an odd hybrid between WoW and Ultima .. without the best strengths of either.

 

They should answer these questions if the further episodes are dependent on Kickstarters or crowd funding. A lot of backers feel burned and if you want them to support the future of the project these questions and more transparency is needed.

 

Shroud of the Avatar does not fit cleanly into most existing genre archetypes. We planned and built a game that would have an open multiplayer mode, similar to what was found in many MMOs. Based on our desire to have everyone on a single server though, it would have player limits per zone and unique instancing solutions. We suspected that due to those design decisions, it would be potentially confusing if we pitched the Kickstarter as a traditional MMO. That is one of the reasons we chose early on to try to market the game using the term “Selective Multiplayer”. However, that term was confusing to most people and now we often use the term MMO, despite our design differences from traditional MMOs.

We planned and built a game that can be played both online and offline. When playing alone, or with your party, or in the open mode, there is a deep story where each player could have a compelling journey from start to conclusion. That story feels akin to journeys in the Ultima games we created before Ultima Online. Parsing words (or plans) for anything much deeper is fraught with error and risk. We pitched ideas that we knew would evolve with time (stating that as we went), and indeed they did evolve.

Many have argued both sides of which type of game is it first. Is it more of an MMO or more of a story driven game? The answer has always been both. It is true that the features matured earlier on the MMO side, but this is just a consequence of the development strategy. The story has always been driving vast swaths of the development goals. The primary cities, main plot NPC’s, adventure maps, all exist to serve the story. We wrote the story and those supporting elements before starting development on most other aspects of the game.

While marketing folks have found value in using historical terms like MMO, I have always felt it is a “new type” of experience, this “selective multiplayer”. However, marketeers naturally want to start from a basis that potential buyers can relate to. Therefore you will see traditional terms like MMO in marketing materials that have to communicate in a single line, the totality of expectation. As we mentioned above, our attempts to get people to adopt the term “Selective Multiplayer” were unsuccessful and we have since fallen back to using the term MMO.

Our great partners at Travian noted that after people play offline for some time, they very well may enjoy playing online afterward, eventually proceed to play with a party, and then perhaps even advance to playing in open multiplayer. If we can convince people to play all of the modes, it keeps them in our ecosystem, which of course is good for the community and the company.

Telling a story in a potentially multiplayer setting does have some challenges. For example, it is more difficult to kill off an NPC in one person’s world, but not everyone’s. We can address this in solo player zones, which we do periodically throughout the game, but we have also explored changing the NPC out ONLY on the screen of the player who expects to NOT see that NPC/State (example in Ardoris). I am pleased with both these storytelling strategies. Over time we will find new methods and get better at the ones we have unearthed in this episode! Tracy Hickman and I are framing book two now and discussions on Episode 2 began long ago.

Online and offline are both key areas for development. I did not pick a “favorite child”; we regularly focus back and forth between them. I do think it’s fair to note that we often focus on online during telethons, as they are focused (at least in part) on needed fundraising. We have found backers enjoy the opportunity to find a reason to continue to support the project. We have found more ways to offer “value” to online players, than we have found to offer “upsales” to offline players. While this may feel biased towards online players, offline players also benefit because all those items get added to the offline mode for free and are available for purchase in-game for gold (no real currency required).

While I admire and learn from level based games like World of Warcraft, we set out to make a game where all areas are open to exploration at all times, versus being level gated. Parties can be formed with players of highly varied levels who can all play together. I believe we have delivered this very well. I find that my developer-buffed characters can be easily beaten by skilled but lower level characters, and that my low level characters can adventure with high level characters and still be of use.

We believe RMT (Real Money Trading) cannot be stopped, and while we will do everything we can to fight illegal behavior, as is often associated with botting, we think the best defense is to be close to that economy, so that we can monitor and influence what goes on. People who want to buy gold, will. Most would rather find a legitimate way to do it that supports the community rather than risk the eBay paths that likely do risk funding illegal activities.

I have heard a few of the MMO player types argue for “getting in at the same time as everyone else” and pitch that we should have another wipe at launch. However, a healthy online game will always have new players coming in as old players leave. In the past we always described WoW’s success as a boon to ALL MMOs as they brought tons of new players to online gaming. Each year millions of new players came to WoW and millions of others leave and look for other great online games to play. We cannot cater to only the “I must be there at the beginning” crowd, as they are too small a group and will not stay until the end... a hundred years or so from now.

I hope this addresses some of the questions that have been asked. By no means do I expect them to persuade you that we have, or have not, met the goals you think we should have prioritized to make the game what you believed, and hoped, it was intended to become. That is only for you to decide. SotA has been a rare opportunity for players to see how the sausage is made from inception to completion. Because we did it in the open, starting from the design docs, SotA has actually changed far far less than most games during the development process, specifically BECAUSE we already had public expectation, which does not occur with traditional development. I am VERY happy with what SotA has become, I feel it has met and exceeded the plans we set forth five years ago. Of course there have been changes, improvements and omissions, but if anything, “creeping featurism” has been our biggest change. While this has added time and cost, it has delivered a game with far more depth and quality than we could have accomplished in a shorter time or with less money.

I do interview, podcasts, and blogs with all levels of press almost as often as I am asked. We are currently planning dedicated press events in the US and Europe, and are happy to include any press in those events. If you or others in the press wish to be included, please contact us at support@portalarium.com, or PM @Berek or @Cerus here in the forums. This includes any requests for interviews.

Lord British

 

Thank you for this response. I think it hits some of Lord Darkmoon's keypoints and some sticking points for the more SP oriented backers. I know language could be a barrier, but would you be open to an open interview with him where you could go back and forth on the questions he put forth?
A lot of the press recently about the game has just been more release notes and that it's nearing release, not really anything of substance interview wise (sans the youtube series you did).

 

Are you sure?

 

Thanks for answering @Lord British!

This quote is a very hopeful sign for the complex story side of the equation. I look forward to it continuing to expand over time.

Personally I've been wondering and hoping for a bigger NPC Dialog box (not the chat window), or a resizable one with the option to change Font size and maybe Font color/background color. Might that (at least the bigger font and window) make it in by launch or shortly after? It's really not very pleasurable for me to read the story on such a tiny area. I like hardbacks and turn up the font on my Kindle!

Again, thanks for taking the time to respond.

 

Thank you very much for taking the time to answer some of the questions and help clarify things.
I really appreciate that.
I think it all comes down to expectations, maybe some wording and marketing.
I would have prefered the term selective multiplayer for a new type of game. Using the term MMO simply sets some pre-defined expectations which I think don't do the game justice as a whole aspect of the game is not really acknowledged. Maybe this ist part of the confusion and some of the frustration...
I learned something from your answers which might help me see things in a different light from now on. So thanks for that.
I wish you all the best with the game and hopefully you believe me as I really mean this honestly.
Thanks.

 

Professionalism and courtesy prevailed. Good! Bravo!
Some of the defenders of LB should take LB as an example of how to behave here. You don't need to belittle people to defend the game.

 

I share your need of large text these days! I will add a Jira for that! I think most everyone would agree that each new early Ultima tried a variety of new things with EACH installment. Those that worked out well, we deepened in the next game, those that didn't got revised for the next game. The impacts of "selective multiplayer" storytelling will have the same future works. As we learn better how to tell stories meant for YOU the MAIN character (while allowing you to hang out with friends), we will adopt those into each new episode.
- LB