Do I Step Through the Gate?

Greetings Fellow Seekers:

A mysterious door of light has appeared in my home, and I am considering stepping through the gate... I am seeking stories and insights from those who have gone beyond...

A little about me: I was introduced to the Ultima series when The False Prophet was released, and had completed every game in the series from there to Ascension. I've played I-V also, but none of the to completion. I also played Savage Empire and Martian Dreams to completion.

I was also a beta-tester for UO and played it though the beginning of Third Dawn, and quit when my computer could no longer keep up with the hardware requirements.

I've been keeping an eye on SotA for some time, but only have come to the point where I could justify buying a computer powerful enough to run it properly. Soooo... here I am!

First things first... I'm strongly considering making a pledge before the Expiration Event but having a difficult time choosing which level is most appropriate for my needs. I'm thinking about the Explorer or Ancestor level, might I might be able to be talked into Edelmann.

Any thoughts or ideas...?

 

Do you wish to sell stuff? Edelmann gives you a commission-free vendor.
Do you want to own a village home? Edelmann gives you a tax-free village lot deed that can be placed anywhere (i.e. not restricted to Player owned Towns), and a house to place on it.
Also, the greater your pledge the earlier you get to pick a spot in the land rush.

The rest of the stuff is of less importance.

 

Welcome!

The Row houses are OK, but if you think you want to have a vendor, or do agriculture, having the actual land around your home and tax-free vendor is super-great. Everyone has their own threshold of Cost -vs- Value, but if you think you can handle the pledge, the Edelmann certainly gives the most opportunities if you plan to be an business-owner.

If you simply need a place to hang your hat and store/display your goods, then you should be fine with the Row (Ancestor).

Hope it helps, I'm sure there will be many more opinions, but whatever you decide, I wish you great fortune!

 

If you love living in a row house, upgrade to Edelmann anyway and place your favorite row house on a village lot. You will feel like a Don with a lawn.

Alternatively, check out the market place sub forum, there might be some players who would like to sell their Royal Founder Citizen/Edelmann pledges for cheaper price. You will get a lot more goodies from Royal Founder pledges.

 

The truth is here! You already made your decision.

Get a pledge on July 27th during the telethon!

 

• City lots : i picture them for large guilds (to pay taxes together)
• Town lots: for small guilds
• Village lots: for more serious players
  
• Row lots : for casually players

 

Thanks for the welcome and advice!

I suppose I would put myself somewhere between the casual and serious player. Meaning- I'm serious about this game, but the reality is that I am not going to dedicate the amount of time it would take to really be serious in terms of what I can accomplish in-game. I've got a lot more obligations on my time than I did in college and so I've got to be content sticking to activities that I can drop rather quickly and come back to later when I have the opportunity. Clearly this is challenging in an online environment.

I suppose to that extent it is worth real cash to me not to have to worry so much about paying virtual taxes in-game. I will want to play around with having a vendor for sure, but I don't know how far I will end up taking it. I do like the idea of a lot deed that I can place anywhere. However I immediately wonder how that would impact the chances of ever selling anything on my vendor. As I recall from UO, there were so many vendors that I found it overwhelming to spend hours poking around in random vendor bags looking for something interesting. I suppose the question that is forming is what avenues are there to drive traffic to my vendor if logged out?

That's a good tip to see if somebody is wanting to sell their pledge... is that a common thing to find?

 

haha- I decided to just go with the lowest pledge that gets me in the game and then make a decision to upgrade on the 27th. Also, I happened to find a good open box deal on the hardware. BTW here are the specs if anybody is interested and/or has comments:

Specifications

PowerSpec B659
Windows 10 Pro 64-bit
ECS H110H4-CM2
SunPro 23B0
Intel H110 Express
Core i5 6500 (3.2GHz)
Quad-Core
Up to 3.6GHz
Smart Cache
6MB
LGA 1151
16GB
DDR3-1600
2 x 8GB
240-pin DIMM
SATA
2TB
7,200 RPM
SuperMulti DVDRW Drive - 8x DVD+R DL; 8x DVD-R DL; 24x8x16 DVD+RW; 24x6x16 DVD-R; 12x12 DVD-RAM; 48x32x48 CD-RW
Intel HD Graphics 530
Realtek ALC662
Gigabit LAN
Wireless LAN 802.11b/g/n

 

How is that Intel HD Graphics 530 handling the game so far?

 

I can't tell the difference between Auto and Beautiful setting, so I'm assuming alright. I'm not sure what exactly to expect in terms of performance details. Seems pretty smooth to me.. . although I'm still getting used to the controls so what might look like jerkiness is actually responsiveness.

 

Welcome @KittyKat! Just to put your mind at rest - I also am somewhere between a casual and serious player - stuff like LIFE always seems to get in the way! The great thing about this game is that it's not like many MMO's out there - you can quest and explore totally at your own pace. And if it takes you a year to get up to a high level it doesn't matter at all.

Of course if PVP is your thing you will want to get strong quickly - but even if you take it slow you will be a worthy combatant eventually.

This game has (or will have) an amazing quest to follow, and before (or after) you do that, you can just enjoy living in the sandbox with the community - which is awesome, BTW)

 

Here are some initial impressions:

I like the level of detail put into the facial characteristics of the player, and would like to see more options for the rest of the body. Also, I might be blind but I didn't notice how to change the sex of the avatar.

I definitely like using questions to determine the starting stats for the avatar. But... maybe there could be something more complex than just an EITHER/OR proposition. I dunno- maybe hidden bonuses for coming up with creative answers to the problem. We're all experienced avatars here, right? lol

I chose to help the kid, however in true form rather than just run straight out of town like I was told, I got up on the wall and started running around the perimeter. Found an extra corpse to loot and a shelf full of jars, which I took hoping they might not be total trash.

Going into the battle scene, I managed to hold my own however it didn't appear that I was under any real threat. I figured it wouldn't crash the server if I let my escort die, and he didn't. So I took the time to loot all the corpses and chat with the elf guy.

I haven't stepped on the boat yet. I decided to hang back and mash some of my skills for a few:

Healthy 20
Heightened Awareness 21
Train Intelligence 17

Light 35
Purify 20
Healing Touch 33
Tap Soul 31

I pretty much just launched as many of the skills as I could for about 15 minutes and that was the result. I had Heightened Awareness accidentally paused for a couple of those minutes at lvl 20. There were a couple of times that my heart started to beat loudly and I realized that my death magic must be stronger than my life magic, even if that skill is ahead by a couple of levels.

I wonder what would happen if I try to push it all the way...?

 

Welcome to Shroud of the Avatar, KittyKatt.

I have no Ultima background. I started SotA 2 years ago with a basic pledge and have trained myself to play it through all the changes. My involvement in the community and The Caverns guild have been very positive experiences. I've been able to have some small influence on the way SotA will turn out by finding bugs, contributing feedback and creating some thing that is now part of the game. You will have the chance to do this, too, with the development model as it is. You do not need a large pledge for this.

My building up to Edelmann (and beyond) was gradual and a concious choice at each step. You will not have the opportunity to do it gradually because the pledge to Edelmann needs to be made by Midnight CDT (5:00 UTC) on July 27, 2016. I hope you take that step, but am glad you have joined the community, whatever pledge level you are!

 

Welcome KittyKatt!

 

UPDATE: Overland Map

I was able to spend a little bit of time walking around the overland map, which looks pretty good to me. So now I've gotta decide where to go! Just taking a look at sotamap I find myself naturally drawn to Hidden Vale...

Any other suggestions or things to keep in mind? I tend to like forested areas over the mountains or the water. In terms of gathering, I think I'd like to focus on Foraging, with Field Dressing and Forestry as secondaries, and probably not doing much mining or taking up retirement fishing just yet..

What are the distribution of resources like? How much coordinated effort is being put into gathering as a whole?

 

Welcome KittyKatt!

 

UPDATE: I'm starting to get the feeling that Lord Enmar is up to no good...