Do you have questions for Lord British and the Dev Team? ? (Dev) Replied

Will we be able to opt-in to be paired with random players in multiplayer seeing as I don't know anyone irl that will play the game.

Also will we be able to see everyone in a city/town and not just the ones that we are "grouped" with.

And how much can we customize our houses in the video you scrolled through a couple of houses will we be able to personalize them and make them look different?

 

1. Please, will we be able to have giant amounts of customization over at least our facial appearance (sliders)?

2. May I put in a request for LONG hair, a rainbow of hair color options, plain and elaborate hair styles, and some sort of barbershop to 'change it up' when I want to 'go out for the evening', etc.?

3. Will you consider a request to not only incorporate dyes and dresses, and the like, as per the past, but also many ways to customize?

Thanks!

 

1. How will skill trees be handled? Will they be similar to UO and very flexible and changeable or once down a specific path are you are limited in changing them like in some other games?

2. Will skills be based on a 0-100% ability like early UO or will it be something else?

3. How many characters per account?

4. Would you or the team consider community submissions for story lines, quest ideas, music, and other areas of the game?

5. Would it be possible to have contests in the future for community contributions and as a reward offer things similar to the rewards in the kickstarter program?

 

Here are my questions. As expected they're basically focusing on single player aspect. Since I haven't had time to look at other questions, I apologize if some have been asked before!

1. I've already been bugging you guys on twitter about this and I'm sorry, but I really feel you need to stress the single player aspect more on the KS pledge page. I see quite a lot of harcore RPG/Ultima fans not willing to back the project solely because they feel it's a kind of MMO or the solo aspect will be gimped.

2. How will you handle magic ? will it uses spellbooks and reagents like Ultima did ? Or perhaps offer different kind of magical schools like Ultima VIII ?

3. Will the interactivity you've mentionned allow to move all kinds of items around the world (whether it's plants, buckets, chairs, whatever), like Ultima 7, 8, 9 and Ultima Online did ?

4. When will you be able to tell us more about the world, setting and story of Shroud of the Avatar ?

5. I gotta say having to spend 125$ to get physical goods feel a tad expansive. I remember the day you had all this sort of content for 50$. Would you consider adding more physical items for lower tiers ?

6. Based on the title we can only assume SOTA will have some kind of Virtues. Anything you can share about them compared to traditionnal Ultima virtues ? Will the game offer a philosophical kind of research/illumination like Ultima did ?

7. How do you plan to handle dialogues ? Keywords ? Sentences ? Will NPCs have long dialogues ?


8. What will Lord British (as in the Lord British character)'s role will be in SOTA ?

9. Do you plan to have secret POIs on the overland map that can only be found under certains circumstances ? (Related to plot for instance, or what about an explorer skill that could reveal hidden locations if it's trained enough ?)

10. You've mentionned you intend to have NPC shedules. Do you plan to use these aspects of schedules for specific quests or dialogues (ie. Those NPCs in Ultima you could only talk to at night or that you could follow arround to trigger specific events)

11. In addition to moving around will we see NPCs performing specific activities like blavksmithing, or sweeping the floor, firing arrows at targets, sitting down on

chairds, laying on beds and so on ?

12. Will the single player offline mode allows to save anywhere you want ?

13. Any plan to have Lord British ressurect the PC upon death as in Ultima tradition ?

14. You mentionned the possibility of having a party for a solo player, but will these just be random henchman or full fledged NPC companions like Iolo and Shamino ?

15. If there are full fledged companions will they intervene in dialogues ?

16. The David Watson interview was great. Any chance he'll appear as Iolo in the game ?

17. Will ?Stones? appear in the game or does EA holds the copyright ?

18. Even tough the game won't use classes, will there be some form of character creation involving Virtues dilemas as in the Ultima series ?

19. Is there plan to use the overland map to allows dynamic evolutions of the land ? (ie. Imagine a besieged city that could end up destroyed or restored depending on

the player's action)

20. Any plan to use gumps and ragdoll for inventory like Ultima VII/VIII/Online ?

21. Will there be ways to track your character's karma and reputation ?

22. You've mentionned that there'll be five chapter and they'll each add new lands. Will each chapter have to be played in a linear order or could player getting the game later on play them all concurrently ?

23. Will each of the new lands in future chapters comme with a brand new cloth map ?

24. Will the game use runic script like the Ultima games ?

25. Will the capital be named Britain ?

26. You mentionned the possibility of seasons. Could there be effects on the character and need for specific protections related on weather ? (ie. like how the frozen

lands of Serpent Isle required fur clothes)

27. How will you ensure that the solo gameplay wont be gimped by the multiplayer aspects and feel like a proper full fledged Ultima game ?

28. Any plans for horseback riding, ships or other vehicles ?

29. Could thing like crafting or economy be used as well with NPCs and solo player ? (like how you could work for the baker in Ultima VII for instance)

30. Will the story use cutscenes and/or scripted events to move forward ?

31. Can you talk a bit about dungeons design ? Will they have more to ,hem than combat ? (ie think of how notably Ultima IX's dungeons had tons of puzzle and other things). Will dungeons have NPCs or specific quest in them ? Will they have their own lore and history ?

All I can think of for now! Thanks for everything!

-Sergorn

 

<i>"How do you feel?"</i> ~Star Trek IV

 

Is is possible to own a house when playing offline and pledge under $500 on Kickstarter?

 

Are we going to have Pay to Win or Pay for Content systems?

 

Oh! Will we have books inside the game we can pick up to read, and blank ones to write in, like in UO? I liked that!

Thanks!

 

There will be thievery system? AKA snooping/stealing and hiding/stealth.
Good luck and good work!

 

Hello Lord British and team!

My Question is,

How big will this map/scenes be compared to Ultima Online or WoW?

 

Hi Team!
A quick question here as to how party formation will work. I am an older Player and just don't know anyone these days in real life who plays computer games. I seem to have outlived most of my opponents! In Warcraft they have a facility which will match you with others online who want to do various quests. Will SOTA have a similar feature? In other words, when I go into MMO mode how will I meet people to form parties?

(By the way, a quick hello to Richard if he sees this. This is Neil Shapiro here and he may recall all the times we met in the past. Our first time was when I reviewed Akalabeth for POPULAR MECHANICS Magazine where I was an Editor. Then reviewed other Ultimas. I ran all the online CompuServe Apple II groups (MAUG) and he and I met many times at various Applefests. Continued to review Ultimas online and then at MACUSER where I was the founding Editor -- and I met LB at a few Mac Conventions too I believe. Anyway, am very excited to get back into Ultima and have pledged at the Citizen level! Would have gone for more but divorce attornies are real pricey these days!)

 

Hail to all and well met! I humbly ask the following seven (7) questions:

I. Can each hex on the world map represent one or more locations?

II. In relation to the previous question: will it be possible to generate an instanced location by entering a world map hex that does not contain an assigned location, such as visiting small farms in hexes adjacent to a cities or towns? For example: I (E)nter a hex in the middle of a vast woodland, will I be lost in the forest and have to find my way out somehow?

III. The games of Lord British have historically pushed the limits of currently-available computer hardware to their limits. What hardware specifications are being aimed for, how taxing will they be, and will they cause hardware available now to emit fire and smoke when the software is executed?

IV. Object interactivity has been a hallmark of Lord British's games and a keystone of the experience. How deep or shallow will the effects of object interactivity be? Will I be able to throw an egg across a room, see it break upon contact with a wall, and will the egg dry and stick to the floor?

V. Will there be a need to travel back to the lands of previous episodes when new lands are made available in subsequent episodes? And how great or small will that need be?

VI. I've lobbed this question to the Ultima Dragons Internet Chapter on Facebook, but I figure I'll ask here and get an answer straight from the horse's mouth. Is Smith available for comment? Nevermind. Anyway...

In mid-2012, it was reported by GamesIndustry International (http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2012-07-10-richard-garriotts-portalarium-raises-USD7-million) and other sources that Portalarium had secured $7 million of investment capital to fund development of Ultimate Collector and would "be used to help launch production on Garriott's new role-playing game, Ultimate RPG / New Britannia (working title)".

In light of the recent open of the Kickstarter campaign for Lord British's Shroud of the Avatar: Forsake Virtues, by how much will $1 million accelerate development of the game and how much of previously-acquired investment capital is being assigned to the Should of the Avatar project? If the $1 million Kickstarter goal is met or exceeded, by how many months can we expect a playable build to made available to the beta testers...

VII. ... and on that note, aren't the Kickstarter tiers a little steep for what they offer participants?

============================
|$10======================$10|
|===========================|
|=========($$$$$$$$)==========|
|===========================|
|$10======================$10|
============================

In closing I bid good health, good humor, and good luck to all.

 

Hey team! I can't express how excited to hear that this project is almost funded as we speak! I will be honest, I never really had the chance to play the original Ultima series because when I first obtained a PC, UO was just arriving and that ate up a lot of my time.

That being said, a lot of my curiosity comes from the multiplayer aspect.

1) Do you have any idea how many players you will allow on screen at once?

2) I think the relevance system is nifty, actually. I am just curious how much focus is going into this system. My curiosity is how much other than pvp can increase relevance ranks in the game. Quick case scenario, if I became a well established entrepreneur in a major city and I would like to be more active in sales than just having a vendor? How well would I be able to broadcast myself directly? Also hypothetically, would a group of pvpers hold more relevance over one pvper?

3) Will the resource gathering system be as robust as the crafting?

4) One of my main joys of UO besides having a truly diverse array of activities I could pursue in Sosaria, was the role playing element. Do you predict the multiplayer will allow for as rich a role playing system between players as UO did?

5) I would definitely love to hear the teams thoughts on RMTs. The only reason I bring this up is because RG brought up the fact of UO Castles going for absurd amounts of money back in the day, and I wanted to know if you all felt this was a positive aspect of the community trading or not.

6) As a final question, I noticed on the Kickstarter comments page that the team has opened up to discussions of making this an offline exclusive game. As much as I do protest this idea, and really do hope the multiplayer aspects do not disappear from the final cut, I have to ask a question on this. Should you decide to change, would this alter the rewards in the pledge tiers? It would make little to no sense, in my opinion, for someone to spend 500-3000 dollars on a virtual house in an offline game.

Thanks for hearing our comments and attempting to answers any questions you can. I can only imagine the stress you're all undergoing with attempting to get a new project off the ground and trying to appease the masses. Now off I go to visit GOG and grab the old games so I can see what I'm getting myself into!

 

Compared to UO how large is the map? Is it large enough to get lost in?

 

I noticed that the conversation system has a simple implementation in the builds that have been demonstrated so far. Do you have any plans to implement a more elaborate conversation system similar to what is found within the Ultima Age of Enlightment trilogy and other subsequent Ultima titles ?

 

UX:O actually had some great ideas when it came to skill and ability progression even though Lord British was not involved and the project was scrapped.

My question is, will the virtues play a direct role in skill/ability progession? For example, will their be a skill tree for Honesty, that will lead to more powerful magical abilities. Will there be a skill tree for Valor that opens up new melee/defense abilities? If one maxes out all virtues and becomes the Avatar will there be new skills available?

As an old school RPG player and huge fan of all the older single player Ultima games, the biggest concern of mine is consistency with those previous games, especially UIV - U7. The virtue and true RPG systems in those games, in my opinion, remain unparalleled to this day.

 

A couple more questions

- Has there been any considering to expand the ad hoc player match up to used a community / subscription service. For example someone can starts a game instance for community X. Other players can sign up that that community so when playing they get matched up with other members. This is great for online communities where players may not be on each others contact lists, such as a player town from UO like paxlair.

- What is the upper limit of other players that appear in my instances? Is it proximity based?

- If I were to run a player shop in town and I wanted to interact with my customers how would instancing effect that? Who would and would not see me in my shop?

- Will writable books as well as other forms player crated written material exist in game. Perhaps something more graphical like flyers?

- Will it be possible to script basic dialog for npc vendor?

- Will there be systems in game to manage guilds, from player membership, ranking, access rights and so on.

- Will property have guild support functionality? Such as friended / co-owner status from UO housing?

- Will guilds be able to acquire any special kind of guild property?

- Will there be any support for the creation and design of banners in game?

- Will guilds be able to interact on a more political level, such as guilds associating with towns. Or perhaps more complex political action as we've so far seen sieges which means the complexity of warfare can force players to take sides.

- Will guilds be able to hire npcs to serve as henchmen or simply have them in uniform for thematic effect for guild activities

- Will it possible to stop at any point on the map and enter an undefined nature location, the same system being used for random encounters? Example Overland travel in fallout 1 and 2.

- When travelling in overland view with friends how it movement managed? Is there a party leader to moves for the whole group? Or does each player move individual on the overview map?

 

The 3D engine seems very flexible : will you allow players to play with an overhead view even on regular areas for Old Time's sake? I would assume this to be possible since the overland is overhead already.

-Sergorn

 

Would it be possible to make up back stories for our own characters or Guilds if possible since it would seem to make for a interesting aspect to have that people can possibly look at and read? Also if we pledge a certain amount now and after the kickstarter finishes we want to give more to get a higher level would that be possible?

 

Will we be able to be lady adventurers?