Companions

No one can see the answers. Hope this is not a violation of a forum rule again, but these questions - as all questions about single player content - remains unanswered since months.

 

single player yesish. remember there's was a hangout.

companions however did get some answer, just nothing you can repost again.

 

I don't mind the enticement to get lower tier backers to upgrade to Founder. I support that. And it's only like a $20 upgrade for Adventurer or even the lowest tiers if they also use the $20 coupon to get to Founder.

My main issue is such that once they've upgraded to (or outright purchased) Founder, they have no platform for discussion unless they fork out another $385 -- just to discuss some answers to questions that would otherwise be public in a Hangout or General forum post or even in IRC. The other issue is that absolutely none of the questions in the Q&A pertain to any Dev+ material -- or even Founders only material -- not only because the questions are asked in a public forum, but if references were made to such material, the questions would have been moderated to oblivion. So again, only publicly available info would be asked and answered about. This is truly a bizarre set up.

So there are two options for the devs: create a Founders forum so they can discuss the Q&A, or move the Q&A out to General so it's public.

Anyways, thread derailed...will post my thoughts on Companions shortly.

 

You are right, what I meant are the companion based questions in this Dev Q&A Thread

 

Oh no! You missed a few Q's, though I am not sure these ever had answers either (*If I told you, I'd have to ....) but they were still "asked" =)

Bubonic asked:
In the Deep Dive, it was hinted that Companions would not react to each other or the world around them. In previous Ultimas, your companions were an integral part of not only the cohesive world, but the storyline itself. With Portalarium's "primary objective" being to "tell a story even more compelling than Ultimas IV-VII", how do companions fit into this?

Docdoom77 asked:
Inquiry: How will companions be handled in the single player modes? I.E. can we expect deep, dynamic characters like the companions of old?

 

Hi guys,

Unfortunately due to an increased focus on game content the weekly Q&A thread has been cancelled until further notice. I completely understand the reasoning for this, the devs are hella busy with the release schedule.

And yes to clarify, the reason the answers were posted in a FOUNDER area was to encourage people to pledge (even at the most basic level) to see those answers. Hopefully the publicly available FAQs page answers the essential questions for those on the ~$45 fence so to speak, whereas the Q&A thread's purpose was to get into the nitty gritty stuff.

Hope this helps.

 

I thought about jumping that $10 more to become a Founder, but I was already past my personal declaration I'm not going to invest more.

So, seeing this issue that really interests me, is not being developed, I'm not so sure it ever will be. Which is unfortunate, because there have been a few times I've thought about investing more. Who wouldn't, when it becomes a game they want to play?

To be fair, I think the game is looking pretty good (for the resources they have and how small the team is), the community involvement, community events, and social aspects are pretty cool. Anyone who reads my posts well knows that I'm not happy with choices made about where they expend their energy and resources. But who knows, maybe that won't be an issue in the end.

 

It helps. But it's one less reason to entice me to upgrade. I figured it had to do with time constraints.

It must be really difficult to be a developer with a small staff (understaffed) and all the demands people have for what they want to see in a game. I think the biggest challenge is, knowing what to promise before development.

 

Make a plan. Enact that plan. Win. You all know I have said that a few times =o

 

Ssshhhh....I'm trying to be diplomatic here

Edit: And goin' all empathetic on y'all hehe

 

If by winning you mean build a game that will only ever appease the minority of consumers that pledged a Kickstarter and not trying to build a game for the greater audience, then I disagree, but I'm sure you will reciprocate anyway so really no need to express my opinion

 

They don't have a choice in following the kickstarter.

 

Have any opinion you want, doesnt make anyone else's less or wrong.

So, your antithesis is that not having a plan is good to satisfy a majority of KS backers?

Never done any project without a plan. Also luckily never had any "fail" in terms of the actual plan. Had plenty turn out to be not a great idea, but the plan was known, discussed, and implemented.

Just throwing poo on a wall, with a bunch of noise, from PRO and CON points of view, to design a "plan" on the fly, is not a way to design anything. That reeks of brainstorming, ya know, the thing you do PRIOR to making a plan.

 

Lets all make a break with missing features about what we would like asl Steam Release is in short time.

I think they should focus 100% on that Day with all resources, pull back on everything else if possible.

I myself think the future success of the game including all extra dreams, wishes, companions , extra map detail, extra animations depend on that day.

If they pull in only 5000 new gamers I Say game over. Game will deliver minimum.

I do hope they at least double up.
I am stalking other releases, other games that did raise money before steam.

Life is Feudal failed with crowdsourcing big time! and pulled in 65 000 customers.
They used to advertise with "next Ultima Online"

If SotA pulls off something like that it means more desperately needed Developers can be hired.



They then need to go 100% Steam Workshop releasing all the frustrated community dev power. A must i think.

Almost everything, also the companions functionality, depends on Steam release success.

I am nervous for that day.
I think SotA Vision is above 10 Million Cost easy.

I would recommend to upload all your ingame screenshots on Steam also
Press F12 ingame, not F11
Mad Hermit and all other Guides, Fan Pages should activate on Steam. It is easy to do for all.

Why shoudl I?

They will show up on release directly if someone searches about the game in the Steam Community Hubs making it look breathing and living.

I woud tell the community to start uploading first on Steam and then in this forum, but all in Steam first.

You want companions - wait for Steam result.

All my personal opinion.

 

Whatever we say now is not going to change R12 in any way unless it's a bug report or will guarantee 1M new Steam users

The devs are indeed heads down on R12, so sure, let's not bug them unnecessarily. They've got a hectic 2 weeks ahead of them. But that doesn't mean we should stop the overall discussion about Companions, or any other topic.

And in regards to Life is Feudal, yes, we should be so lucky. Their Indiegogo campaign failed spectacularly last year, barely making any money at all. But they did manage to turn things around considerably, as they reportedly sold 100,000 copies in their first month when they launched on Steam Early Access last month. However, they have been in development for 4 years with presumably a much more refined product, while SotA has less than half that time.

I think SotA has the potential for those sort of numbers (if not lots more), even in its current shape. It just needs better marketing.

 

I really like this thread, probably because what made Ultima feel like an Ultima was the companions.
My favorite companion was the knight, Sir Seggallion, who had an astonishing resemblance to Tom Selleck.
In Ultima 6, you learn that he was actually the Hero from another game 'Knights of Legend' who was mysteriously teleported to Britannia from his homeland of Ashtalarea when he accidently stepped through a moongate.

I spent quite a bit of time in U6 searching for a way to send him back home, perhaps even go along with him, to help defeat the evil lord Pildar as a side quest.

I don't know how the developers of SotA feel about AI companions, and fleshing out cool back stories and quirks, like how Iolo would always play music while the companions camped each night, etc..
But these are things I miss from Ultima, what the 'spirit' of Ultima means to me.

 

Make a break, as in flee ("make a break for it"), or hold our breath and wait to see what happens? Like, none of this will matter if it doesn't do well on Steam? The game will totally tank if it doesn't do well on Steam? Is that what you're saying?

 

Companions with personalities, backstories and their own agendas add so much to a game. It was such a great feature in the older Ultimas. Is it a coincidence that those Ultimas without companions were not that highly regarded by the fans? Ultima 8 and Ultima 9 were both such huge steps backwards. And I still don't get it that it was never tried to reach the complexity and depth of Ultima 7 again. Why is it better to go backwards with the complexity and depth of a game, offering less features? Shouldn't games build on their predecessors, making them even better? Bringing them a step further instead of back?

 

Companions should not be a 'stretch goal'. Why should you pay extra for something that was forecast to be in the game with a 1 million dollar budget, when you have a 5+ mil budget?

I want companions as much as the rest of you, but feasibility-wise, how in virtue could you implement them functionally in a 3D 3rd/1st person perspective game??? How would you keep track of them during combat? Party systems really only work from a top-down perspective. That is why RPG's stayed top-down for so many years. They should have remained that way.

It works in multiplayer because your party members Avatars are controlled by real people, friends, strangers etc.

Sure, you can zoom out, but by design it isn't convenient and SotA's big brother Orwellian UI will fight you on it lol

 

This is not being marketed as an "MMO" anyways... It was supposed to be a hybrid, "selective multiplayer" full-fledged RGP with all of the associated perks therein. Please Koldar or Firelotus go ahead and 'moderate' me again for such a blasphemous post... I crave such attention... Alas, you would not be helping the game's potential fanbase by doing so ... TROLL ALERT BLEEP BLEEP TROLL ALERT BLEEP BLOOP