Did anyone catch this news story?

Richard vs Jesus ?

 

Remember when Sroud of the Avatar was developing along side SC?

and Richard had to explain to Chris Roberts how gravity works?
and they were both crowd funded games together?
Wasn't that neat?
~TL~

 

Why working windmills and such things matter...

Is Richard Garriott a method actor who's lost some of his method?

Or... did the genre as a whole loose some of it's Role Playability?

I think the last stronghold of RP, or the final thread that RP hangs on is character fashion, what the character wares.

Maybe it's just me, but I think our Ultima path through modern progress beyond Ultima Online has been stumbling due to a lack immersion in an RP sence. The flavor of the immersion has changed, from full immersion, to now where the immersion seems only the grind. No longer do I have to challenge myself to think as if I'm really here or there, but whether I will enjoy grinding in a certain area or not.

From what I notice, from where we've come from to where we now are, there's nore glyphs which fill the screen and less relationship between our tools, functionality such as the windmill and how they are applied to the task which seems more robotic than Ultima's far past.

I think in comparison, the old worlds of Ultima felt more like worlds and the new worlds like SOTA feel more like a game with more robot features than more real world connections or world functionality.

I remember Lord British once saying that our game here could be one where no amounts or numbers in skills or levels could be seen, a world where whatever you actually did, if you did it enough would eventually show results through effect rather than "I'm now at 67 swords, what are you at?"... That seems very far away from where we've now become, which I think seesm more robotic than human and thus less RP immsersive than it is grind immersive. I see this as imbalance and something the entire gaming genre has fallen into, as our real world has also where robotics and lever & dial controls now fill our hands more than before when basic hand tools once hammered the steel (sort of speak).

I don't think there's anyway back to that time when Lord British's fancy notion of hiiden skill values would become a thing in our game, yet I do believe there could be a less traveled side road programmed to accommodate which would bring back more of a feel of RP immersion, though it could be that such a character needs to make that choice of whether to choose a life through glyphs or the more challenging and less predictable way of glyphless.

I do hope the very best for this new Ultima game in the works, but I do hope Lord British is more working on it than Richard the Robotic Garriott is.
(that is meant in all fondness yet very much to my point).
~Time Lord~

 

I completely disagree with this statement. Sota is an amazing sandbox and it is what you make of it. If someone wants to just grind all day, that is completely up to them. But I spend most of my time immersing myself in the actual game world. Interacting with people, checking out there decorations, dungeons, towns. Exploring areas i haven't been to before. Setting up vendors and cool areas for them. I just recently visited Irishize's town and was completely blown away by the love and thought that had been laid out in nearly every place you look!

Comparing sota's immersion to those old Ultima games... and then actually saying they seem more immersive really kind of blows my mind. I think you may be confusing your past feelings of nostalgia for those old games, without actually comparing the games side by side.

You can control your own immersion here. Don't let others dictate how you should play the game. If you don't like grinding at control points or airship, you don't have to. I never have. Plenty of other spots to explore and hunt that are incredibly more immersive, enjoyable, and will still help you progress and gather items of value. If you don't like talking about your 67 in swords, don't. Find something you enjoy to do, it's probably there if you look around for it. And if it isn't... you can usually create it here yourself.

 

At times I believe this subject is like the differences between books and movies when it comes to comparing old with new, while on another level, the heads-up display full of glyphs and data seems a culprit. Still further another are the skill values and tree valves turning up or down values, which does whisper back to the early times of SOTA, where Lord British thought the opposit, to hide all skill values, which was long before card combat entered our game's design.

*(on a side note the whole of "non-trade items" is fully an immersion breaking quality, as things in the real world can always be traded, owned or rented, yet not banned from being normally traded)

It's when all those combine which have shielded our game (as well as most others) from reaching further or deeper immersiveness than what could be achieved.

What we have is nice, but it has limits due to it's robotic natures, not it's decor which you rightly point to.

*(occupying/entertaining one's game time vs immersion (ie) "escape from reality", seem at confrontation within the subject of what is immersion)
~TL~

 

Press F9. Enjoy!

 

It's not just about the auto swing, this comes back to an automatic function needed to choose from a hidden deck of cards at random. The original intent before the cards was to hide all skills, then card combat came "which made our great game", yet took that original Lord British intent away. But that was very early when he had that intent, long before we even had anywhere to hunt here in SOTA.

You take it as a dig on our game this notion of deeper immersion, yet it's not. Most all games have this similar problem, where the more robotic has replaced the random or unpredictable.
Yet this doesn't touch functionality in items, or animation of items, or trade of items, which are other things which effect RP immersion.

RP immersion in many ways has left the MMO. The RPG part is more in fashion of clothing or choice in glyphs, rather than worldly escape into deeper fantasy.

I'm not a conservitive or establishment content player, I always want a more progressive agenda which is why in many ways, I'm very happy the old guard programers have somewhat stepped away from SOTA.
~TL~

 

Because the games are so much better now, we use to rp because the games sucked. Now we can actually RP without really trying. You are seeing a less immersive game in sota compared to the old Ultima's, which like I said before, blows my mind. Your books vs computers comparison says it all... you think the old games are a different form of media, but they aren't. They were the basic form that we now have amazing games to play on. If you really want to RP, this game is where it's at. I've been role-playing an a-hole governor who drinks a lot for the past couple years, and in my opinion, I'm doing a wonderful job.

Also you can EASILY set up a crazy powerful deck without seeing the ui. It would work the same as any old game... you just can't have the deck be completely dynamic. It would be mostly locked with 1 spam slot. So q does this, e does this, r does this... etc and once you learn your deck and are accustomed to using it, you don't need to see the ui at all. You can make the game as immersive as you want, but don't take the easy way out and then tell me it's hard to RP in this game. Cause this game is completely built for RP.

The issue isn't the games have become less about RP, your choosing not to RP, and your choosing easy button instead

 

I agree with this. The card combat is ok in SOTA if you are young and type 60 wpm. The Ultima style of combat I really miss in our Ultima Successor.

 

"Homogenized" is a better word for what you just said and a fish doesn't know it's in water until it leaves the water.
I don't thin Mark Twain would agree with you that this is the best media for the experiencing the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. I read Dune and it was not what Dune the movie was, yet Dune the movie was good and the new Dune is good, but it's not the book either.

I will expain using SOTA as an example some qualities which inhance immersion;

When our characters are standing still, they still have some motions they do without any button being pressed at all, "which cause them to seem more life like".

What you describe here are robotics which are counter life like and much more like a (fictional because real don't work this way) "soldier" recieving marching orders, which are the same functions as mech-warrior. In other words, what you secribe is "Order without Chaos".

More Games in One:

More options has always been a hallmark and aim in SOTA, in that there are many different options for almost everything.

To grasp what I'm pointing to, one must look at game expansion in a very different way, which has seen some success through other ways in many different games;

When different races of beings are able to be played, this in a way expands the game for the gamer. The more races are added the more classes and skill trees are either the same as all others or different. Yet what I'm pointing to here is something along the same lines, yet expanding gameplay X2.

For instance... we have the "outlander"... but why not also a "homelander"?

Homelander = symbiant (a homelander who develops amnesia, possessed by a game player in another world. The homelander has some free will and at some things not. Place a bow in his hands and he uses it, place regs in his backpack he uses them as well, a sword in his hand and so on. No need for training as the homelander knows everything, he has all cards yet uses them all from a hidden random deck without command. The only thing the player does alone is place him in instances, take him in and out of combat mode and equip him/her.

There's not much programing needed for such a thing and would provide our game a complete revival and thus more $

Many of our players play solo, when adding a symbiant relationship to this, then the character and player become a "we" or a friend or "he's trying to get me killed".

Extra character slot nessesity means the prices for those may go up as if almost buying a new game up.

Through thus a SOTA revival of sorts and a reason for game reviewers to revisit and instead of refering to our game (when speaking of the new game coming) as a failure, this shows we are very much alive and still adding options of play, further developing, further inovating.

The Homelander...
Brining back some of what Lord British had intended SOTA to be.
~Time Lord~

 

The story of gaming NFTs has now gone main stream news:

 

More than killing monsters and waisting time Warren Spector says:


Asking questions and allowing players to answer them through their play choices. This is one of the most beloved elements of Ultima gamers, which was always in our past, done best through the influences of Warren Spector.

I'm going to lead this back to "SOTA Homelander = Symbiant Relationships" and why we need them in gaming.
~TL~

 

I pick Apopis.

You're ruining it...

 

This reminded me the number one rule for Deus Ex development: players do, NPCs don't.
That means NPCs will never have the same skills as players.
In SotA, one of the bad design choices was "players and mobs should follow equal rules in battle".
This lead to some bad stuff like being stunlocked by trolls, button mashy fights against spiders and skeletons, and the worst kind of gameplay design I ever faced in my life: every-2-second-shuffling-confusion from Cabalists.

In SotA we have the opposite of Deus Ex: NPCs do, players don't.
Try confusing a mob? Nothing happens. Try Torpid Torment a mob? Nothing happens. But they can do it to you quite easily, jeopardizing gameplay.

 

Good points to bring up!

I am predicting that as actual A.I. expands into our normal lives, as well as becoming a great part of what future computer programer's will be doing, that there will be a rise in the "Symbiant Relationships" between A.I. and it's user/owner, in the same way an actual horse has a symbiant relationship with it's rider. The horse or A.I. is likely not to run into a tree even if the rider may give it no option than to do so, just as an automated steering car's A.I. may restrict the driver from driving into a wall or another car.

We've seen symbiant relationships in popular games such as the "Sims", where the amount of autonomy of the Sim can be adjusted to suit the symbiant relationship with the player.

This is why I think it's only a matter of time before we see more such games where symbiant relationships rather than the Avatar being the player's robot self. If not given a command, the A.I. in Sim fashion will execute an option from it's availible programing to suit the situation it's aware of or placed into (such as war mode on/off here in SOTA), in the same way an A.I. driven car would avoid the wall if the driver did not.

Warren Spector gave Ultima one of the most player effecting element when he caused the Virtues to effect our paths, which later transfered into good or evil effected titles seen in UO which was one of it's most player beloved features. This in itself was one of the first symbiant relationships between game and gamer.

It's this "RP" element of symbiant relationships that I believe is missing in our genre, yet in our game here in SOTA, would be so easy to present as a new optional path a player could take, yet only from the very beginning of their Avatar, thus having the symbiant relationship player entering the world in much the same way as UO, where they were just dropped in without further basic training needed.

This is why I believe symbiant relationships are the future if not "a future" option due to so many real life symbiant relationships ahead as A.I. is more applied to everything in our real world.

It's in this way, that I believe what Warren Spector unknowingly pointed at, were these symbiant relationships, yet in his day, was the relationship between the crude A.I. of Ultima games past with the player, where the player chose the direction, yet it was the A.I. or RP programmed pathway which then lead the player.
~TL~

 

It has been over a month since this news drop and everything seems to be silent, despite the mentioned May-June start date for land sales. Has anyone seen anything new?

 

I'd imagine that the recent downturn in crypto has had a dampening effect on their plans. Say what you will about the dollar and inflation, but at least my bank account doesn't lose over a third of its value in a month. Heck, I wouldn't be surprised if the price has only held at that point because "entrepreneurs" are "buying the dip" in hopes of being able to fuel another round of NFTs once the price recovers, creating even more competition in the NFT "wealth generation for people that people that are absolutely going to hit it big this time" market.