Confused MMO or Not? ? (Dev) Replied

PvP gets a mention on the Kickstarter page and says "Meaningful PVP that also minimizes griefing".

That can only mean there is some element of MMO in there imo!

 

So if I understand correctly towns are "shared" online space. So having a shop in town you essentially have the ability to sell to everyone.

While going out of town off to adventure you essentially spawn an instance to play in. What I would like to know is how exactly does the instance work.

Is the instance shared between a group of people who form a party in town?

While sharing an instance can the group split up? What happens when one party member runs back to town for supplies? Do they return to the same instance?

If not party based are instances more open ended, in the sense can a group of people basically share an instance. Basically an instance would be be closer to the old mmo feel but limited to a group of people who want to play together?

In this case would there be a limit of players who can share an instance or is it open ended enough allowing a large enough player community to sort of have their own shard?

Lastly what is the connection between the instance and the mmo aspect. How to actions in one context effect the other? For example loot gathered in an instance can be sold in your shop in the mmo context?

 

Thank you BlackMagix,

but:

"Towns on the other hand, offer more protection and amenities than Villages. The larger amount of available services will further increase traffic flow to your home or business. Plots of land will be larger as well, allowing players to build bigger houses.Towns are an excellent place to start a business while affording moderate levels of safety. (Only a few hundred Town homes will be available to players in-game.) "

Sounds like house location will be important for merchants and open PVP will be the danger.

 

Have patience my friends. All in due time. All the answers will not be known on the first day the game is announced. Give it a few weeks, and I'm sure more will begin to be explained. I do understand why everyone has the thoughts and questions here, but in do time I would expect that development aspects will be explained,and in more depth.

 

Well Julian, if we all just sit and wait for more information then these boards would be boring to read.

(not a flame just joking)

 

I hope there is some sort of option for a Dedicated Server in some way. This would allow something to run the game world long term in hopes of creating a communities full of Ultima fans that crop up all over the world.

 

I'm guessing it will be like Diablo as far as severs/players are concerned.

 

We will be releasing a Developer Blog that further explains how the Multi-player aspect of Shroud of the Avatar will be implemented.

 

Indeed. It also might affect the level of pledge commitment that people will choose, so it is indeed something that needs clarification imho.

Edit: Thank you FireLotus

 

I'm a long time fan of the Ultima series and a huge fan of Ultima Online. My friends and I have played since the game was released off and on and still play on some free servers to this day. There is a reason why we keep coming back to UO 10+ years later... Well, there are many reasons.. but I believe the most important addictive factors are the sandbox style play, and the fact that we have the ability to play in a huge world of friends, acquaintances, strangers, guild mates, enemies, and scary PK's. I've searched for the same excitement and game play in other single player games and MMO's but have yet to find any the come close. Nowadays, I am willing to bet that the vast majority of players wouldn't want to play a game like this alone or with only a few friends. Keep all the great ideas you have for questing, housing, world design, etc. just make it a full blown MMO. Just my 2 cents.

 

I Just want to be able to PK again


Hoping it's not a consensual PVP...

 

I was extremely disappointed to hear that it is not an MMORPG.

Nobody out there has created a game as good as Ultima Online.

There are MMORPG's where the graphics are better, or there are more ways to keep you addicted to the game, but UO was the best MMORPG ever made that EA milked for everything it was worth..

I was very excited at the idea of there being an 'updated' type of UO style game... only to see that it's not the case.

I guess I should just give up hopes that there will ever be another MMORPG as free and open as Ultima Online.

 

I agree with many of the posts above about how meeting with strangers and stuff like that that happens in the open world was one of the key elements of what made uo such a great game. Understood that there are still lots of information we don't have in our hands, but as far as my opinions go, I'd prefer an open mmo over zones/instances.

 

I'm assuming this will be similar to what has been described for Star Citizen.

Players will be able to join up with friends at nearly any point, any time players are in a certain location, the game server will check that against other players (referencing who your guild or group might be at war with, who might be on your watch list, who might be on your friends list, who might share a similar style of play, etc.), and when these paths intersect, you will be placed in the same instance and be able to interact.

Just a guess on my part, but it seems like Chris Roberts and Richard Garriott have been in some discussions about their games, so it makes sense.

 

I helped beta on UO and it was fun. The Griefing got to be a little much back in the day though LOL. My best Ultima memories are the single player ones. Yes I had friends in UO but I cant live there like I did when I was a kid. MMO's are too much of a timesink for a real life and family to me anymore.

 

I think a lot of people want this game to be the next Ultima Online before EA ruined, though im not sure that's what they are aiming for at the moment.

I think the persistent housing and non-MMO comments contradict themselves. They mention having 1000 village homes, etc. which would make one believe the server can have 1000+ players like a MMO.

 

I think a part of this depends on how the first M in MMORPG is defined. After all, does massive have to be along the lines of, say, a WOW server? Or can it be cozier and still massive -- maybe 1,000 players. I think that the key here will be how you can meet new people and how solo play is orchestrated with online play. One of the intriquing things I noted was that your actions make a difference, that it won't be like WOW where the question isn't so much how do I kill SuperBoss1 but rather how can I kill SuperBoss1 a faster time this week with my guild? I am looking forward to some sort of methodology where history is actually historic and not continually malleable. Well, we'll see!!!!

 

The one thing about Ultima Online that I liked was that you didn't have to have 1000's of players online to feel like there was a community. I think a large part of this had to do with the map size not being overly large and the fact that people had reason to revisit location.

MMOs now days have regions that are level based and the map sizes continually increase because zones become obsolete as players increase in level.

So if they are saying that it is not going to be a Massive game in that sense than that's fine. I would just hope that the world was persistent for the most part, in that I still had to be on my toes when exploring the map in case I ran into potential Pvpers.

 

No big world map, no open PvP so ... , Diablo Like, impossibility of PK system, WOW like instance. All of these points quite contrary to all the principles that made UO for me the best game in history. Something wrong here or we just limited with information ? Somehow this is very important subject for at least 99% UO players I know past more then 10 years. Even after leaving UO (cos wise innovations, thanks EA) my ICQ list full of people and all of them red's, murderers, thieves ... Is no place for us in Shroud Of The Avatar ? I like to know this.

 

I am in at the Collector level, as I am really a big fan of UO. Been totally in since U3. Got all the cloth maps. But, I had some bad experiences there in UO.

I'm a casual gamer - I can't sink hours at a time, whole weekends into an MMO. I work and provide for my family. This put me at an extreme disadvantage because of so many people with so many more hours to put into it built up perfect anti-newbie killing machines, and they were *everywhere*.

I am hoping SotA will provide an experience us casuals can enjoy for a couple hours a night. Or less.

To pass the time I picked up a new UO account and its great because no more PKs around anymore. It is a little lonely tho...