extremely disappointed............

Today I logged on for the first time and I have to admit to you guys that it is even worse then I could have imagined to the point of I'm literally baffled what in the heck Richard is thinking! The person who created the best MMO ever, can possibly be the creator of this game. This game comes off as a confused game confused who it really is as its trying to please everyone at the same time.

Why I'm upset is Richard starting campaigning this game in UO player run shards. If you don't know UO is Ultima Online, the first real MMO ever, a game Richard created and by my assessment the best MMO ever made. Not even close for that matter. He dubbed this by the way the new Britannia, so basically what all of us old UOer been waiting for for over 10 years is UO with graphics today. I've been waiting for this ever since I got to lvl 40 in WoW and was tired of grinding and not doing all the other little things you did in UO. Plus all the major things like PKing, full loot, and of course skills.

So I play the game for the first time today and to say I am disappointed is an understatement. There's a reason why there's a saying, "keep it simple stupid". Simple works...complex doesn't. When I logged onto UO for the first time I popped on a sword and shield and went out into the woods and started having fun. Here I log on and for literally 2 hours I try and figure out how this ridiculous complex GLYTH! system works. Ya that's right gylths. Apparently Richard wanting to make the games identity crisis even worse is also trying to be like WoW. You have glyths and points just like WoW and you have tree just like WoW and you have to unlock them...just like WoW. I couldn't believe it honestly. Finally we thought we were getting a skills format game made from the UOer creator himself and he even sold out be make a game like WoW. Even tho a video hes posted recently has said how all the games are the same and have the same ? on quest and! when you hand them in, has somehow created glyths and trees and points. To say its a disappointment is an understatement.

So for 2 hours I'm trying to find out how this fighting system with glyths and glyth bars. There's like different glyth bars and when your in this mode one pops up then you switch your in another. Oh and by the way you have deck of cards and there's alternate deck of cards and......honestly it was so annoyingly confusing its even hard to explain. I couldn't get the right glyth bar up...i couldn't get glyths in the glyth bar, sometimes id get a small one that had changing cards and sometimes I didn't. Which gets me to my next point. While I'm fighting that's exactly what i want a system that involves luck. If i need a heal i gotta hope and pray one pops up but it doesn't pop up in the same spot so its not like WoW where your spells are always in the same location so you know the button they switch buttons and your fighting and its hard to look what your doing and see where your spell is at now. Its a mess.

I dampened my excitement awhile ago when I saw a video by Richard when he said he wants to make a world with both PvE and PvPers will enjoy so lets make a world with this blue thing and you can only attack at certain times and......... Are you kidding me? This is whats going to be the death of this game before it even gets started hes trying to make a game everyone will like by combining everything together only thats not what happens. Now the PvPers are upset because you cant free-kill whenever you want and the PvEers are upset that sometimes you can. Richard!...keep it simple...make a shard of each. I know thats not what you want but if you want it to succeed you cant combine everything because no one will like it.

But of all this the most ridiculous has got to be to not have an open world. Of the 2 hours I spend playing, literally 30 mins was watching loading screens as you go from one instance to the other. Very Adventurous! To show the objectivity of this community people even try to justify it or claim they like it. Ya I like taxes also. When I first played WoW the thing that bothered me the most were the dungeons were instanced. I was coming from a game (UO) where there were no instances and there could be 100 people in the dungeon and some red may pop in to kill you and u'd lose everything, yet that was the best part of the game, risk. Now id peg for those dungeon instances for this game EVERYTHING is instanced? No free roaming? No adventuring? In an adventure game? None of this makes any sense. This game should have been skills, open world, pking, adventure, and it has none of it.

I can promise alot of the old school UOers are extremely disappointed and that's where most of the money comes from. With that said I'M confused how this game became so lost. How did the WoW crap make its way into the game whos idea was that? Maybe a big WoW supporter? It's just unreal.

 

Not to be too blunt here but it's kinda going to come off that way.

The game has not become lost. The game is still what they introduced it as.

 

Hi brand0o.

 

Hasn't this post already been made?

 

The critique part of the OP is only an issue IMO because of the state of pre-alpha. There is no build up or tutorial. You simply have points to spend on a deck. At some point there will be a growing process and the glyph system will look very simple.

 

Deleted the off topic posts. We welcome feedback, positive and not. The issue with the previous post was rectified, thus this post will remain open. Carry on.

 

The game is still exactly what they have said it would be from day one.

Yes.

 

You are playing an alpha...things won't be explained or streamlined as of yet.

Also, this is a bit of a different beast then say ultima online or ultima(little known games it seems), very bare bones systems in place now...

 

This is one issue with pre-alpha. People expect to come here and see a beta. Let's forget that reality rarely lives up to dreams/fantasy/nostalgia.

I think this sums up what people are seeing (Jump to 1m 15s)

Spoiler

What I mean is people are coming here and seeing a model but were expecting to see the game

 

I get a lot of what the OP is say. I agree with the simplicity of Ultima Online and the way things could be picked up. I think the deck system while pretty fresh as far as a mechanic in MMO is a bit complicated and something I have not investigated (daunting).

But this game is not a Ultima Online clone and will be different with instances and such... I am just popping in periodically to see whats up, but yea I would rank myself as an Ultima Online fan just putting his toes in the game atm.

Edit: I should also add UO was my first and only ultima experience. But i understand that this game will also derive influence from the single player ultima games.

 

I think we need to give the majority of the credit to Raph Koster for what UO was.

 

The problem is that many do have false expectations about SotA. It is not UO and was never planned to be UO.
People shoud inform themselves better about what this game is before coming to false conclusions and being disappointed afterwards.

 

Hello Avatars

I am honest.I am ignoring the combat system as far as i can.I let the ones who love it and praise it give feedback. I did like it for a short time and the more it evolved the more I knew this is not my kind.


It is not that it is bad - but we all have our preferences about what combat systems we love.
Unfortunatly my heart beats more for realistic battles vs strategic pre tactical deck games.


But the Deck Game did win and the roots have been placed. The tree has grown and as you can´t grow oranges on a apple tree, you can´t anymore create a realistic combat system upon a deck system with glyphs.

I will love all the rest of the game but not try to give suggestion on a system i do not even spend time to understand anymore as it just not my type.


Still i am sure that the ones who like Deck System and the Sort of System introduced will have a great Portalarium staff making it super fun for them.

But should a tennis player who does not like soccer keep saying soccer sux and try to implend rackets.
No. He should let the soccer players have fun.


Same for us "realistic battle" supporters. We can´t turn back the direction they have decided anymore. To much development they have invested in it.
The majority loves this system as it seems. We need to deal with it and move on. To late now.


It is good that the majority in this community is supporting this card game combat.
This will hopefully lead to also getting players in.

I decorate then my house and hunt rare. The game has more then a combat system to have fun with.

 

In many threads where people are raising concerns regarding their current gaming experiences with the SotA pre-alpha releases, I usually notice two types of replies:

1) "This is how the game is meant to be!" (could be read as "take it or leave it" or "it's not an issue, it's a feature")
2) "Don't worry, it's still pre-alpha, don't judge the game yet!" (could be read as "most of the issues will change/get better/improve")

I'm not sure which one concerns me more.

Around the Steam Greenlight initiative, Portalarium has emphasized that "SotA's long-term success depends upon us reaching as wide an audience as possible". Given this aspirations, I'm not entirely sure if the mindset "people should inform themselves better" is the best approach. Open pre-alpha is not only a testing exercise, it's first and foremost a chance to convince even more people of your gaming visions and mechanics. That's both an opportunity and a risk. Because in the end, you don't get a second chance to make a first impression. Not many people (= potential gamers) are as untiring as we are.

 

But if I buy Wasteland 2 and complain that it is an RPG with turn based combat whereas I would rather want it to be a shooter then that is entirely my problem and I cannot blame the developers for it.

People think SotA is UO just with better graphics because Richard Garriott is developing it. They obviously take it as a given that it MUST be UO. But they have to inform themselves if this really is like UO or if this is something different. You cannot expect a game to be something just because you want it to be this way.

Also if they really want to reach as wide an audience as possible then they should definitely reconsider some things. On the one hand wanting to go a "retro-way" without much handholding but also wanting to reach as wide an audience as possible doesn't seem to fit very well.

 

I think most of the "don't worry it's Alpha" comments are less that the systems are going to change but more that there will be more explanation on how to do things in the actual game. So new players aren't just looking at every available skill and a ton of skill points and thrust out into the world "get 'em!"

 

Maybe people expect this to be UO with better graphics because the FAQ about the game basically say it is.

"What is Shroud of the Avatar: Forsaken Virtues?

Shroud of the Avatar: Forsaken Virtues is a computer role playing game created by Lord British (aka Richard Garriott), creator of the genre defining Ultima series of computer games, and Starr Long, director of Ultima Online. It combines the rich story of the single player Ultimas with the deep multiplayer experiences of Ultima Online."

They state that as the first point in the general FAQ...people are going to expect something more Ultima Online like.

 

It also says that it is a combination of the single player Ultimas and Ultima Online. So it cannot be like UO was as UO was signifcantly different from the single player Ultimas.

 

You can see how *many* players have been led to believe this is a successor to UO, right? This comes up constantly because that is what many people want and think they're getting here.

The whole "this isn't uo" argument is tired.

 

The argument is valid, as always.

The whole "Just redo UO!" argument is tired.