Early Access Panel - Developers talk about experience with it

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by Myrcello, Jan 23, 2017.

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  1. Gideon Thrax

    Gideon Thrax Avatar

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    Everyone likes what they see for housing and decos and clothing, and we're all on the edge of our seats for the polish passes that fix all the graphics. But what about PVP? What about PVP? When I read [x] "The development team has to look at our historic commitments and development goals, the community's current interests, and what is possible for future development from a scope/scale perspective given the time we have left for Episode 1." it leaves too much room for speculation.

    In the spirit of community and early access, a special livestream dedicated to PVP would be pretty amazing. Maybe even a special series of livestream events that could deep dive into what's left in the way of milestones before Portalarium calls SotA feature complete for commercial release. Even if the series sets back development for a week - it would be worth it.
     
  2. Vallo Frostbane

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    Dont name it PVP. Name it sandbox. Because we also need PVE features that make it in. Building castles and defending them is where PVP and PVE aspects can intertwine.
     
  3. Myrcello

    Myrcello Avatar

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    Will watch it Numa. Thank you.



    I find this all so interesting. And having the option to compare how other Communities of Early Access Games experienced the same often helps to "take a little Steam" away. It is this "Hey, afterall it seems like not a unique challenge we created on our own".
    This River "Early Access" that is flowing in one direction Each Developer may try to move a little more left or right on that river , or even pretend to swim the other way, but at the End all will share the same experience trying to stay afloat.
     
    Last edited: Jan 24, 2017
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  4. Myrcello

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    To have a little lasting fun this acted Game Developer Rage Video. Grin.

     
  5. Vallo Frostbane

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    Devs develop... gamers game the system. That why both need to have a talk with each other. Devs can develop all day long it it will get shredded into pieces by us. And we need to know where the technical boundaries are.
     
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  6. Magnus Zarwaddim

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    "Dev: Why don't you create an imaginary world? It'd probably be like Fresno or something!"

    Classic. And off-topic, I know. :)
     
  7. Gideon Thrax

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    I'm actually waiting for someone from the development team to step in and comment on the discussion. It's a running joke in the community that we're all just waiting for the thread to be locked. The devs are reading, or so everyone believes. The community management/moderator team is watching, or so everyone believes. Why is it then, when a topic is controversial or heated or important, we don't hear from a dev until the thread is locked?

    Isn't the revelation proposed by the OP that developers should plan to be an active part of their early access community? Sounds like a good idea to me.
     
  8. Vallo Frostbane

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    They're going to come into the office soon now :)
     
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  9. Gideon Thrax

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    Another example of why early access needs attention on all fronts. We have a management team fully committed to the care and health of home ownership, housing communities and decorators... where's the rest of it? We're all here for early access, and we all assign different priorities based on our preferred play styles - really, my only complaint is that the players that feel their play styles are being ignored leaves them feeling disenfranchised - and that's not good. What should we expect going forward?

    This from an article published in March of 2013 containing direct quotes from RG.
    http://www.polygon.com/2013/3/8/4076734/shroud-of-the-avatar-richard-garriott

    "The idea of dropping into a situation with another player and not knowing what's going on also sets the scene for Garriott's take on player-versus-player combat, which is equally interesting.

    "We do have PVP," he said. "We're working out the precise details but here's the general plan for PVP. We want neither of these two extremes: In Ultima Online one of the great joys of PVP was it was purely open and if you were into (player killing) it was a great joy. The problem was that some of the best fun you had as a PVP or a PKer was to kill the newbies, which of course really harmed the game itself. There were a lot of people being chased through Ultima Online when they started and some of them never came back.

    "On the other hand, we don't want to make PVP purely opt-in, because what happens is that it's no fun to just opt-in. So that extreme is out."

    Instead, the current plan is to have points in the game, specific missions and scenarios, that essentially force you or ask you to go rogue. And when you do, suddenly you become the other players' enemy and, sometimes, objective.

    In one example Garriott gave to us, a player is asked to transport some contraband between cities. If the player accepts, they become the quarry of all of the other players, a target for PVP.

    "So PVP is incorporated into the story and into the activities, so instead of it just being an open choice, it's driven through events within the story," he said."


    I understand that ideas mature and change, but there are some core elements for a game coined the Spiritual Successor to Ultima that are completely missing here today; and I'd very much like to know what the targets are for feature complete before the game is considered ready for commercial launch.
     
    Last edited: Jan 24, 2017
  10. MrBlight

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    Disagree anything shoulf be deleted.
    If they want to close thread fine. Make a comment. Great. But the whole back and forth between baron and preach helped get the discussion to where it is.

    Regarding the whole pvp aspect. Vallo i agree with.
    Regarding most the other stuff, baron i think you dismiss everything entirely too easy.
    Preach is dead on at start of this. And * speak for yourself, not for anybody else* direct.. welll theres about 60 of us now, and his posts are the EXACT feelings of our group.. so somethng to keep in mind baron.

    Anyways. Keep going vallo for pvp pushs, i get too annoyed with the cheerleaders or people reading the fine texts to justify a weak aspect of the game.
    Fyi when i say i support you, its safe to assume my whole group does.. so basically x60 on my support for ya about pvp.
     
  11. Vagabond Sam

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    Removed some of my posts at a mutual agreement to agree to disagree and maintain the focus on my earlier posts which still contain the essence of my thoughts on this topic
     
  12. TEK1

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    Very much agree on your assessment. I think Darkstarr has done a very good job as producer despite having to deal with early access, the crowdfunding model, and not being able organize development from day 1.

    You are also very right on community management and outreach being a top priority early on. I had thought that Portalarium was on the perfect path when they hired Rustic Dragon early on, but despite being one of the ultimate champions of all things Ultima his strengths were never fully utilized . Really was a missed opportunity. Community management was definitely not a high priority, but that complaint is really a hindsight one.
     
  13. 2112Starman

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    Couldn't agree more and you hit it perfectly for the people who still think this game has released.

    Alpha - play the game while its literally still being developed and content added.
    Beta - play the game near complete. Most thing are fixed, they are looking to find bugs.
     
  14. 2112Starman

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    This is a requirement for crowd funding games even in alpha since their #1 priority is getting more money into the game to continue development. The devs have made this clear and people may continue to define the state of this game based on "persistence" all they want but it all goes back to bringing in more money to continue development on the game.
     
  15. 2112Starman

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    Ill go further. We do have a set of people who are always ripping the game apart period and you always ask yourself why they are playing the game if they hate it so bad. But, we also have "white knights" who attack any one who is critical about anything in the game probably because they have big investments in the game that they actually want to capitalize on later and that wont happen if the game goes into the tubes, financial motivation among others.

    We have both these types in this discussion now.
     
  16. 2112Starman

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    I could not agree more. While I think its cool they have fun and *some* drinks at telethons, that last telethon was embarrassing, they had people drunk off their buttox and I was upset enough about it to complain here. My issue was the perception it gives this game. Very unprofessional.

    They really need to look at these things inwardly and understand that they have a set of people in game now who like it, but what are new players thinking?
     
  17. MrBlight

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    Hahahaha i actually liked the amount they drank. My issue was that almost every question answered didnt help with identifying long term goals in big issues.
    I have hard time even bothering asking anymore since its ususlly a * we ll look into it * * well discuss it maybe * lol
     
  18. mass

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    Unfortunately, this is true. I don't think anyone chooses to develop in an Early Access model because it is fun. They do it specifically to raise money they could not otherwise receive while they develop the game. If you consider 'beta' to be a feature complete state that requires further polish and balancing, then we are not there yet. Some examples (not because they are most important, but are most easy to see that they are feature incomplete) are agriculture, which clearly has forthcoming features not yet implemented, and fishing, which is scheduled to receive more features soon. Other features, such as uncloned scenes, main story quests, side quests, etc. are not complete. I don't think it's fair to say this is a feature complete beta. In fact, they've continually cited that 'fun' would be the last thing added, and despite some fun we've been able to eek out of the current game, I don't think that major component is in yet.

    Now, if you want to suggest the devs should have their heads examined for going persistent in such a feature incomplete state, I would agree. But that ship has sailed. It was a strange decision and I don't think it was a requirement of the early access model. We could have kept going with game access that had wipes far longer into development, but I suspect Port was concerned funding flow would dry up if we couldn't keep our progress.

    As @TEK1 described, going without a traditional publisher means tapping into other revenue sources like RMT and the RMT of beta accounts, which had previously been 'black market' commodities (and some might say they were black market for good reason due to the harmful impact on games).

    We've been hashing this out since 2013. Someone was mentioning 'cabin fever' in discussions a week or so ago. I think there's a lot of that.

    Early access has a lot of weaknesses, including showing everyone 'how the sausage is made', and forcing a small group of gamers to take elevated financial risk for an uncertain outcome (that they may have to watch deviate from their personal vision of the game as it is developed). The alternative is the creative leash placed on developers from a corporate publisher. I think we are seeing, though, that the corporate model has some benefits that independent developers have to give up to go it alone in the form of sacrifices made in the game.

    Their biggest concern right now is to keep funding alive until they reach a feature complete state with what is likely a short financial runway. They probably have limited time and use for the majority of feedback at this point. It is what it is. Doesn't necessarily mean the outcome will be bad.
     
  19. mercster

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    I brought this up when I was interviewed by @Woftam ... I think a lot of games go persistent to keep their player base. But I don't think SotA was under that exact pressure. SotA fans are unusually fanatical and dedicated, and I don't think they would have lost many players by holding off. In fact, they may lose more in the end, by going persistent too early. I hope not...
    Well there's a third option: not make a game at all. SotA may not have even found a publisher to support development. I think crowd-funding was probably the only way this game got made. I do see benefits to both ways. I'm glad the game is how it is, though (so far...obviously a lot of work is yet to be done).
    Yep. Although we should continue giving feedback, because if enough players say the same thing, over and over, it WILL get to their ears and may make a difference. Especially on some of the balance issues, the types of things they are starting to work on now. Fidgeting with the numbers, etc.
     
  20. 2112Starman

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    What I find funny is the people whos biggest complaint about persistence is that I get to start early or place a house in the best place. That shows a complete lack of knowledge of crowd funding. First of all, any of them HAD the opportunity to start when we did. In fact, I have been here only a year and there are people here who were around 2 years before me. Second, Im a casual-hardcore and I am sure that when this game goes persistence, there will be new hard core players who pass me up in 2 months... It really does not bother me. Third, the benefits of pledging money for this game were here right from the start and anybody new to the game can see what those benefits are and can make the decision for themselves whether they want to play the game.
     
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