2018 - A few weeks until launch and I just wondered what notable things we had in 2013...

Dear Avatars,
I wrote and asked a lot about quest/dialogue/journal. And I read so many threads about the confusing dialogue window, and also thought about to improve it, like here.

I just watched this Shroud of the Avatar 3 Month Demo, because of a thread ("Are we happy yet?") and REALLY WONDERED about THREE things in this game, which you can watch from 5:55.

1. DIALGUE PRESENTATION and good legible TEXT FONT
Why was the way to present npc dialogues changed from this as it was introduced to the dialogue we have now?
It was a clear way to show, which person is telling what, more easier to follow and gave the feeling of a more realistic dialogue ... not a text flash through a window like now ...

The FONT was very clear to read - better as it is now!

Why can't we have the dialogue again in this way? Textinformation above the npc. A small keyword window at the bottom and our Questions left/right beside our character with a good and nice font!

Consider: The whole dialogue is shown parallel in the separate chat window, which we can open and fix the position all the time! And if we enter the dialogue mode with any npc the screen is "frozen". We can't walk around while talking!


2. HEALTH and FOCUS position
At the bottom were two lines for the health and focus of our Avatar. Now we have them -like WOW- on the upper left-hand corner. Actual we are focusing in battle to the bottom, because of our Combat Hotbar.

I'm often confused, looking there watching all the enemies stats and also mine and this of my elemental!

So it would be great to have our Avatar's Health and Focus information also at the bottom near our Combat Hotbar. As we know: in battle a second can decide between life and death

To have the view of Health and Focus of enemies appearing in the upper left-hand corner is fine.

And it would be a clear separation in both cases:
1. Dialogue and 2. Battle information. Top and Bottom.


3. These wonderful looking CAPES not going through our body!
I agree with @High Baron O`Sullivan: These fine Capes looked great.
And WATCH IT: THEY DON'T GO THROUGH THE BODY !!!!
5 years before ... our Capes were fixed!

Just a few thoughts ... small changes sometimes can have a great effect!

@Lord British it would be fine to watch what you were proud telling us in this video and to (re)think about, what was GOOD before now.
Sometimes a view back to the past is a good one also for the next future ... thank you

 

OMG I can read what the barkeep is saying!

 

I like the tree chopping with the progressive stage of half chopped before fully felled. Agree the health and focus at bottom is better. Also the xp to advance level indicator would be a welcome return

 

The overworld map looks so alive!
We had the cool bag-inventory!
Crafting looked cooler.
Talking to the barkeep looked cool!

Oh my god what happened? This 3-month demo looked much more like a game than the "game" we now have!

 

While it doesn't bother me so much because I am so used to having the healthbars in the top left corner, having a more flexible UI has got to be one of the most asked for things. Have they ever answered more specifically when something like that would become a top priority? Maybe I'll add that as one of my telethon questions.

 

Yep thats the difference between advert and reality. The game seems more finished than it feels now. it was a good demo video.

 

I miss walking into the house and playing the piano seamlessly, without a long animation to sit down first. The keys on the piano animated as it played too.

 

I remember this video. Zoning out to the Overworld without having to find an exit would considerably reduce some of the busy work I reckon. Streamlines it nicely. I agree about the dialogue too, looks way more approachable and well presented, even if the responses were hard-coded for demo purposes. (And RIP Bag Mode obviously but I'm really hoping it makes a comeback before Ep. 2)

Graphically the Overworld has come a long long way, character models and especially armours look a lot better now too. Plus I'm sure there's plenty of lighting and shading improvements I'm too blind to notice. UI still had that "Alpha look", but as someone mentioned on the UI thread, hopefully they're putting the lipstick on for r52 to give the game a big boost of freshness. (Come to think of it, the psychological effect of a brand new UI look would be quite powerful at that critical time)

 

Having only joined this in Nov. 2016 - watching that video - what really stood out to me is the NPC dialog options seemed much more exciting.. like the NPC would really respond to all the stuff you're saying.. and I originally tried talking to NPCs like that in SOTA - until I learned they just have a small set of keywords they respond to.

It would be nice to actually be able to interact with them and ask things about the town, other NPCs and area around them like:
- where can I buy arrows
- where is NPC name
- What time is it, what's the weather like, etc.
- how do I get to Brittany from here, or where is Brittany

 

There is definitely a lack of the "global knowledge" type of answers. They each know their own town, but few of them seem to know about regions (especially beyond their own), other towns, political figures outside of their towns, points of interest, or world events at large. One all the towns are populated, hopefully Lum and Lord British can go through and identify things that every NPC should know.

 

2 and 3 are unimportant to me. 1, though? YES PLEASE. Especially when you have conversations with more than one person- I was constantly confused doing the path of love, having to constantly scroll back to see if the text was from the NPC I was speaking with, or Samael.

 

Had a thought - since this is an online game after all - why not have the client query a server providing some kind of AI for the dialog, that can be updated at any time without requiring a client patch - and not have all the dialog 'baked' into the client?
Kind of like having a SOTA Siri, or Alexa, or whatever..

 

"Samael- play Slayer."

"I don't know about that. Perhaps you mean this?"

 

"I am sorry, I do not know the game Slayer. How about a nice game of chess?"

 

Wow, I forgot all about that video. It had a very Ultima 9 feel to it which, to be perfectly honesty, was just fine to me. I'm inclined to agree that the dialog system shown there would be a vast improvement over what we have now. As I've mentioned elsewhere, the dialog system is my last real "issue" with the game. While I'm certain the actual story bits and conversations are interesting, the presentation of them makes it really difficult to engage myself. And I already have trouble with text-heavy games at this stage of my life.

As a recent example, I played through Sword Coast Legends, which has a fair bit of dialog in it, and not all of it was voiced. But the blocks of text were smaller, so it felt less overwhelming to engage in a conversation when there was only a short sentence or two on the screen at a time, and it was presented in a way that was easy on the eyes. To me, a wall of text makes me think the NPC is going to drone on for a lifetime about things I don't care about, and then I'm already "scared off" before I've even started reading. As a result, I miss the good story bits that make you feel like a part of the world.

One thing I've been waiting until launch for is to really start engaging the story. Somehow, I've managed to go through 50 releases and not go any further than getting to Ardoris along the path of love. And I'm hoping that by that time, they'll have found a better way to present the dialog so I can really immerse myself in it.

 

I too have avoided completing the actual story so I could do it during release. Actually would like to revert all my quests if possible. :/ hell I wouldnt even mind a complete wipe but I know that wont happen.

 

I very deliberately have not done any quests at all as I'm waiting for the Single Player portion to be finished properly. I want to open my present on Christmas morning so to speak. And I'd wager a fair amount of backers are doing the same (which sucks for Port if they're relying on analytics tools that don't show that! Although that's where surveys and polls shine. ).

I play the online mode like I played UO, pottering about, collecting stuff, crafting, decorating, just sort of living in the world a bit. But my heart belongs to the single-player experiences from the Ultima series the most. Funnily enough, I see the U9 aspects in this (3D) but the world in U9 felt small, this isn't really a problem here with the size of the maps and the Overworld.

And I'm hoping the story is more U7 than U9 (which felt a bit Spartan). With a little bit of U8, I know it got criticized for it's "platformer" elements but I really, really liked Tenebrae, something about the intro of the game and then that town that was just dripping with atmosphere. Very well executed. The graveyard, the wizard hermit, the mad queen lady, Pyros etc...

So, yeah, a new dialogue system would be good. I truly believe they're paying attention to us and they probably won't announce anything till they're confident they have a decent system up and running. I hope it's in the works for r52 but if it isn't I'd certainly expect to see it within 2018.

And just from watching that Talk in der Alm series a bit, I'm confident Travian understands the importance of the Single Player Offline mode too. @Cerus

 

Thanks for sharing. I can't believe this was an early concept. I am going to be honest here, it looked and felt a lot more alive and interesting than what we have now. Standouts for me:

• The dialogue worked really well. Not only are the text bubbles a lot clearer and easier to read, but the bartender responded like a conversation with a real person. The NPCs are interacting with each other as well
• The overhead map felt a lot more alive than it does today
• Gathering makes a lot more sense and isn't a massive waiting game
• Crafting is a lot simpler and makes sense with no waiting game
• The sitting animation with the sword is awesome!
• The cape is awesome and clip free!

If this is stock unity assets then we should have kept using them

 

Yeah this was their idea on how they would like to create the game but I think most changes to this concept are related to needed mechanics they were not able to create or did not worked in a real game.
I think the dialog needed some keywords the avatars recognize as such (to help avatars in conversations) and that’s why we got textboxes but I think even today you can write sentences instead of just typing/clicking one word and I think there are even some NPCs that ask for a complete question if you are just shouting a single word towards them. Also I think there was needed a mechanic to differentiate to who you are talking to and that’s why we are focused/locked on one NPC. It might be quite more difficult and time consuming to create a working open talking mechanic we have seen in this concept than creating the current version as you need more queries to define to who an avatar is talking to. But of course it would be more “natural” to just talk and the NPC in front of you is responding...maybe in a later pesiode they have the resources to work on that.
Regarding health and focus…well actually I’m not looking at them that much during a fight as the near death indicator is enough information to know that I need some healing. I normally just look at the bars after a fight if I should put away the weapon and recover or can keep on fighting and that way it is for me quit uninteresting were to look. But if it would be easier for others…I wouldn’t have a problem if they would move the bars to the bottom of the screen but as already said with the scheduled customization of the UI there is maybe already a solution in the pipeline.
The capes I do not see as a big problem as this behavior of capes can be seen in many games. Of course this shouldn’t happen but I would guess this could have been a needed workaround for other problems the devs had.

Zoning out to the overworld might be a possibility in secure zones like most towns but not for e.g. dungeons as by zoning out your avatar is walking to the scene exit by himself without your “help” but monster between your current positon and the exit might not be that good-natured to let leaving avatar simply pass. On zoning out you might get some info what happened to your avatar while leaving the scene e.g. “Elder Wolf killed you while you were leaving scene A.” Or “A thief has stolen 53 gold ore while leaving scene B”.

I think at least the guards in story towns have mostly some more info and can e.g. guide you to NPCs even if these keywords not appear during their normal conversations…well at least it was some time ago that you got a mark on your compass after asking a guard where to find an NPC. I think the devs also said that they are still working on that mechanic but it is really a lot of text you have to implement for all possible responses.

 

Just to be clear at that:
I really appreciate all things to improve the game from Release to Release.

I just wondered about a few things, showing well thought positioned features.

I have no problem with a lot of text, and also that we are "locked" while talking to a npc is okay.

It's just about things, which were fine before and now gone or changed in a less comfortable way.

2 Examples:
Underlined Keywords AND Keywords to click. Last one would be enough for a better flow of reading.

Keywords, we asked before are jumping back to left, when clicked again.

Just two confusing things, disturbing our Story feeling while reading.

Underlined and jumping words are really disturbing parts while reading and enjoying the story We want to dive in and concentrate on the NPC and what they have to tell...

I read a lot of stuff, also ebooks, actual Sword of Midras It's great!

Imagine how it would feel reading ebooks like The Hobbit or Sword of Midras, if a lot of words would be underlined and words would jump after scrolling... Sure you could find several reasons for such things, but...​

The best Story can be destroyed by distracting mechanism, and as I said before: I like the story and I think it needs just a few visual adjustments to improve the presentation...