2 years and waiting

I pledged 2 years ago. I also have upgraded my pledge during that time period. My question is simple. Does the community feel that we should now have a MMO game series 1 thru 3(1-3) ready to play and enjoy?

 

Nope. I was happy when Blizzard was able to pump out an expansion every other year. And that was with a huge team pulling in over 100 million to 200 million a year in subscription fees.

 

MMO wasn't pitched in kickstarter. I feel like we should have at least episode one by now. My fault for believing the estimated delivery date.

 

The original release date was based on the original KS goal of what was it? 1 million? More money means more features and more polish but that takes time. We're getting there in good order. Realize that most big titles take around 3+ years and sometimes up to 5+ years. So.. no. We're getting a lot more than originally planned and things are moving along at a good pace.

 

Estimated release date 2014, 2015, 2016 get the picture.

 

I understand , I am anxious as well, but I would rather wait for as long as it takes, to get it right. Time I have plenty of and patience as well. So far I have no complaints and I have played in many a beta test, so I knew what to expect. A little of this and a little of that , that is how a legend is born.

 

In the earlier Releases I expected the game to have developed at a quicker pace, and to be certain, some Releases have been MUCH more playable than others.

Right now, I'd call SotA VERY playable so long as you understand exactly how much of the game is available at this point. Lag is not too bad overall even in larger cities, combat has gotten much smoother than it used to be, and PvE gathering and looting feel decent (IMO of course).

I think LB might have been a bit optimistic on the initial timeframes, but having the community be able to get into the game in the process of it being built and offer bug reports and critiques on what systems work and what do not and why is going a long way to making the game a lot better. Contrast with not even hearing about the game or only hearing rumours and teases for 2 years.

Oddly enough I still remember the enjoyment of the first few Releases... going around finding the chests full of random stuff, getting multi-player working with only really Owl's Head to hang out in... climbing on the roofs and the Tower parties, etc. Sure it wasn't anywhere near a "finished product", but they were fun in their own ways.

Rushed out the door does no one any good.

 

Well, it's not like we are sitting around with no game to play while we wait for the release date to arrive. If that was the case, Port probably would have had the 1st episode out by now. As it is, we have actually provided direction changing input that has altered what the final world will be like (numerous times by now). Every-time the developers decide to action one of our requests, the release date gets pushed. Anyway, along the way we have made friends, had some fun, tested the world, crushed some bugs and helped to bring the game world to life.

Remember, its the journey, not the destination.

Cypher Black

 

Of course I think ep1 should have been released.

I uninstalled the game around R17 and consider Shrouds 'social warriors' gullible.

But that's just life. Some people you just keep promising the universe to and they just keep on believing they will one day inherit the stars.

 

It's true that it has been 2 years, but they have never taken a break, so I don't mind if it takes 2 more years.

 

I'd rather wait 10 years for an amazing game than 2-3 years for one that's just mediocre. Which sadly, is approximately what game qualifies as so far imo.

 

Some people expect too much and get disappointed when they feel those expectations aren't met. Not sure what to tell people who think a game like Shroud can be finished in under 2 years. Would they really prefer that it's rushed from start to finished in 12 months on an even smaller budget that it has now?

 

I can only speak for myself. But no, I don't feel like that at all. I feel like the game continues to move forward at a nice pace and every month I see great improvements in all areas.

I know from following Darkfall and Shadowbane, MMO's take a long time to develop and test - somewhere between 4 to 5 years. Or if you're Darkfall, 7 years while the development team tells you it hasn't really been 7 years.

Since this is a game that I plan to play for many years, I'm not worried about waiting some extra time.

I feel like we'll be in Alpha within six months from now - if that helps any.

 

I would expect industry professionals to be able to estimate a delivery date.

I think there should have been a road map to get Episode 1 out without having to rush.
Everything that has been added from the original plan might better have been pushed to Episode 2.

What would the publicity have been like with a complete Episode 1 out, and people able to say look how great this is, and they're making it even better for Episode 2!

Portalarium never said they could make the game for $1 million. They said they were using that goal to test the waters, to see if there was enough interest to make the game. More money doesn't have to mean more features. It could have meant more people to get the game out on time. Then more features could have been added for Episode 2.

But that's water under the bridge.

 

Right.. I always expected it to be probably at least 10 years through EP5. I won't even consider the game to be complete until then if not longer. I'm not losing any sleep over the EP1 release date. So long as they're showing good progress.. which they are.. I'm good.

 

I fear that is wishful thinking more often than not. I'd like to see any developer who met their first estimated delivery date. (Not that such things are often made public)

 

Yes, and I think what happen is probably a combination of two things.

1. The scope of the original vision has gotten larger. I don't mean with the addition of various features or even larger things like POTs. Of course this happened. What I mean is that they had a freakin 30 day kickstarter, and they simply didn't know how much money they would get, so their plan was adjusted on the fly. Before someone says "well they should have a plan that works!" Show me a plan and I'll show you something that gets adjusted as needed or something that DOESN'T work. The best made plans are laid to waste.

2. Unlike having a publisher and funding from the beginning, the budget of this game grows every day. And so I think the development, at some point, rightfully said this: We can do one of two things. We can stick to our schedule and make "a game" that may have all the stuff we promised but might not be very good. Or we can commit all funding collected in EP1 and use it for EP1. That means no profits are taken on any of this 7.5 million dollars that they've collected so far. This gave them the best chance to make a "great" game, but it significantly pushed forward their estimated completion dates. Remember, they didn't start the kickstarter talking about "agile development" and "one month releases" that evolved over time and out of necessity.

I'll end this by saying that regardless of what has happened, none of it matters if we get a great game. If we get a bad game, people will rightfully second guess all of it. But until this game becomes "finished" I personally feel like this kind of criticism is like Monday morning quarterbacking the night before the game is actually played.

 

I work in an industry where we pay millions in fines if we miss delivery dates.

Imagine if you ordered something from Amazon, and the estimated delivery date was 10 days, but it took a year.

Right.

 

And that industry would be?

 

I would say that the gaming industry doesn't have the same track record as Amazon deliveries for a reason. I think it's pretty clear that delivering a package on time is a bit less taxing.

What I've learned from watching this process is that making a game is both an art and a science that not many people are capable of doing (especially with something this large and complex as SOTA). There are often people in the peanut gallery that say otherwise, but they're just talkers on the internet. When they can point to their own successful project and say "see it's easy" I'll start listening to them. These are the worst of the worst, the know it alls. Yes, you're correct, "if only you were president!"

How many games are on Steam right now that are about 1/100th baked? I would say about 90% of everything being independently developed. If you want a game that is shipped on-time and delivers a solid out of the box product, you go to a large company like EA or Ubisoft. Of course, 40% of their profits are going to their pockets, 40% of their profits are going to marketing, and maybe 10% is going to development (Yes I made these numbers up, but that's how it feels). So you get what you paid for, and you get who you paid for.

They have 30 guys on their team and a small budget. I think we're doing pretty well for ourselves all things considered. So they're human and they missed some estimates, so what? I didn't expect this game to be delivered by Amazon. Did the Kickstarter have a "rush delivery" option?