Are there any plans to boost the game?

The game needs a soul. The nostalgia for Ultima is dying because UO was not Ultima, no matter how much we thought it was when it came out. Now we're way past the point of returning to that immersion into the Ultima World. Nothing in Shroud makes me feel the wonder, awe, and curiosity to discover more about the game world that Ultima 6 and 7 brought me.

I think I might go have a little cry now.

 

Right?!? That track I like just puts me into SotA mood!

And before I even realize it, I’m humming along with the music while playing, lol.

 

I will touch on this point. The game has always had critics within the community. They were heavily moderated and shunned, and their advice and foresight was dismissed. Today the game faces the challenges these critics warned of. If port is looking to right the ship, revisit those critiques with an open mind, and try new strategies to address issues. Three months into a game launch even the best cheerleader should see that we need to rethink the strat and make a move.

 

this game freaking rules (even with horrible FPS targeting that I bypass with 2nd-class cursor mode...)

you people better stay

bring your friends

 

That's still not most... not sure why people keep reposting the same thing.

Yes its a good platform but it's been a long time getting there. Early Steam was nothing like it is today and full of problems. It still has problems. I use it but still prefer to use the regular version of the game and apparently so do the majority of SotA users. Just because its the most used service for gaming content doesn't mean everyone uses it. Just because Fortnite and PUBG are extremely popular doesn't mean everyone plays them either.

As far as the forums on Steam, not sure how much control SotA would actually have. This is a niche game and trolls will be trolls. Would be nice to have fair and rationalized reviews outside of SotA forums, but that is not going to happen with the way society is atm. Portalarium cannot do it all. Players have to contribute as well and as long as their is no incentive to do so and the vast majority of players just "log in" and do their thing and then "log off", rinse, repeat, without any worries outside of their gameplay, it won't happen either. Not saying people who don't post and just do their thing are wrong, I'm just saying it's going to take more and more players actively engaging and giving reviews to get a better view of the game. There is certainly no reason for anyone to wade into shark infested waters and post anything positive on most gaming forums. Have you seen the vitriol there? It's only good if you're on the side of those bashing, then you're given slack. I can't blame people for staying away from forums.

 

But Steam can be the majority of users, if Steam is taken seriously enough. At least offering a free trial not through the launcher would be a good idea.

 

I was an early backer (and bought accounts for both of my sons), and had a ton of problems. I grew up playing all of the Ultima series on C64 followed by PC and eventually UO.

All three of us logged back in to check it out, and frankly it hardly looks like it was worked on at all. My son's crashed a couple times, I kept clipping a wall, still the pace is very slow, and even on my seriously overpowered i7 Nvidia 1080 based machine with 32gb ram its performance is lack luster. We all were pretty disappointed with the lack of progress. Not only that, but we also lost all the work we had put into our house (days) is gone as we lost our lot deed.

I honestly regret having invested as much as I did.

 

So many heartfelt posts... an official response would be good at this point maybe.

 

Can't blame you for the way you feel, but you're describing very surface level issues that many run into. If you push past that stuff, realized you have abilities like the magic mover that allow you to save the state of your house, remember you must pay your taxes on your lot deeds, which means you need to log in and make money periodically, and start levelling and acquiring items, there's certainly alot of fun to be had. Not to mention the quests and other things.

I logged off beween R14 and R30 or something to place during persistance and when I came back in R52, it was obvious a ton of things had happened and a ton of game progress had been made. You're not going to see those things if all you do is run around areas on the overworld, no. You do need to get into the quests to see that and explore towns.

Your graphics card should be more than enough to run the game well. I am running on a 580 pro with 8GB vram and it's roughly a little worse than a 1070 and it's certainly more than acceptable speed wise at 1440p. So I don't know what's up there.

 

I disagree, and here is why. When I say we logged back in, I mean for a couple hours, in fact my son played single player for almost a full day to just get back into the swing of things. I personally completed a couple quests (that took way too long in-terms of enjoyable game play). So what I am trying to say is I did not just log back in, clip through a wall and give up. I gave it a sincere try again. So if the issues I mentioned in my first post are common, why have they not been fixed a year later (or more)? For me it ruins the experience and signifies to me (a backer who spent hundreds of dollars) that the developers are not listening to the players willing to spend money, or the players like myself who literally grew up playing the game. Just so you can see what I am talking about I attached a picture for you. Ultima was an important part of my childhood.

 

Yes, you can still try and promote Steam if you want, in general, for more publicity. However, it still does not change the original message of Steam being only a small part of the current player base. I would rather SotA/Portalarium just unveil the numbers so these things aren't an issue.

This is an indy/independent game. It's not part of a big corporation with tons of money and staff. People tend to forget that when they compare other games and populations. Everything done here was built from the ground up starting with a Unity engine, which may have been for cost reasons as well. I would love to see all sorts of changes to the game, as with many other games. I post suggestions & ideas all the time, but in reality, I'm really not expecting them to see the light of day. They're doing what they can with what they have. It's not like Bethesda or EA trying to get things done. I look at it like 7 Days to Die. Been playing it since waaayy back in early development. Its changed a lot over the years, much like SotA has. It's far more enjoyable to play now that it was back then. They have a small team working with what they have. Take's time.

Not saying everything Port/SotA does is kosher, they do make mistakes. I think the meteor buff (over buff) was wrong in general and it was buffed greatly. Some of you knew this and used it while you could take advantage of it. Others complained that they felt inferior because of it. Then those using the OP buffed mechanics in places like Upper Tears, which should have had similar stuff done to all grind spots, like loot increase instead of one flavor of the month, they'd use this OP buffed skill in Upper Tears then gauge everything else based off it... causing knee jerk reactions and the public to complain about how this person can gain so much xp in a short amount of time, or how "this" is supposed to be the way you do things, or "i need to have this" to be able to do anything, etc etc etc. It was a mistake on Port/SotA's end as well as a mistake on the players who used it and then made claims based upon it which sent ripples through the community. You (the community) knew it was OP and you knew it would be dealt with... On Port/SotA's end though, they should've made other regions/grind spots far more enjoyable, etc. I'm sure people will get burned out from grinding Upper Tears all the time.

 

if logic does not sway the haters and sharks, then one of my many baseball bats surely will!

 

Sounds like either configuration issues, bloat running on your computers, and/or other computer problems. You have a better machine than mine and my wife uses a system like yours. No problems whatsoever unless something messes up in configurations. Her Nvidia stuff got all reset once and she was trying to play with constant stutter/severe choppy lag and it was just a configuration issue. Once I fixed it for her, she had no issues at all and could run 2 accounts at a time and other stuff in background. May just have to recheck all the basic IT/Support recommendations: drivers, cache, bloat, configurations, run Razor utility & GeForce Experience optimization, etc, Monitor? (possible if using older monitors that dont take advantage of 4k+ graphics), settings for monitor in nvidia settings for "nvidia" to override, etc etc.

Sorry if you're still having issues, seems like it should be golden for you. Hope you have better luck with it.

 

Certainly it sounds like the game is just not for you. I do think the devs listen, but you have to be realistic, there is a forum full of enthusiastic feedback and not all of it is good, believe me. On top of that it's been going on like this for over 4 years nonstop, with you know, doom sayers since the beginning and rabid supporters since the beginning. So, they can only do what they can do... especially with a reduced staff. So, when you say "it's been a year since my issues were addressed" you have to be realistic atm about what the situation is. We don't even know right now how much more runway is left.

 

GPU is for sure being used. It's definitely lack of optimization and scene rendering causing the problem. If I turn off Peripheral lighting (full razer setup) and set to best, I can get the frame rate up consistently over 80 after killing off unneeded windows processes. But I do not want to turn off the integration, and honestly my machine should be running this close to 180-200 frames per sec. The framerate and performance is more of an indication that the development team has not put a lot of effort into optimizing the game, and all the little issues ruin the experience. I would easily buy another lot deed and help invest more in the game if I had logged in and saw progress.

 

I honestly don’t understand this. I have a modest specced computer (i5 3.2Ghz, a Radeon M390 videocard with 2GB of memory)

I’m not saying the performance is good, its quite choppy at times, but it’s not intolerable to the point that I cannot play.

It could be a conflict with other software on your machines. The best test, albeit somewhat drastic, is to wipe clean your computer by reinstalling Windows from scratch. Then install game and play it to see. I would be really surprised if its so bad that it can’t be played. If it still is, then it may be your computer configuration has something not agreeable with SotA and/or your tolerance level is really really low?

 

I never said it was unplayable? I just did not enjoy the performance, on a stout machine. My machine can effectively run any A+ title on best settings, without issue. Yet SOTA, runs kinda crappy after all this time? why? I see people talking about a reduction in dev team, I have not followed along, but that could be it for sure. I had no idea the user base was not helping to fund this more. If I saw progress and enjoyed the experience more, I would throw money at it.

 

I'm afraid sir those are just unrealistic expectations. You can go to any enthusiast forum and see that many games with different engines run at wildly different frame rates. Just becuase you bought into the Nvidia marketing hype that the 1080 is the be all end all of all cards (something they've been saying ever generation since the Geforce 256) doesn't mean that, in reality, some games are not as efficient as others and you can't expect to see frame rates all over the place.

That's just how it is with regard to SoTa, at least. I wish too it was running at 200 FPS but yeah, that's never going to happen this generation.

SoTa is an indie title. It was developed in 4 years with a minimal budget. To compare it to AAA games from top tier publishers with giant pockets is more than a little unfair.

 

Not true at all. They have and sounds more like problems on your end and not the game's. As stated previously, I have a worse setup than you and run it no problem and it looks great. Wife's setup is like yours and her performance is even better. Just need to take the time and fix your machine. It's a pain, but has to be done every now and then.

 

I meant unplayable in the sense that you gave up on the game because you refuse to play it at any level except what you think your machine should be able to play it at.

I like the game for the game. I gladly dialled down the resolution and graphic bells and whistles to mitigate these “surface” issues.