Features you'd like to see in Shroud of the Avatar

Full drops when you die like in UO (kept me on my toes) =)

 

Oh, and Runebooks to save locations I want to teleport to!

 

X Realistic swordplay.

 

I just had a couple more ideas to add to the pile sorry to do this to you and I will keep it brief but I think it would be great if the use of guildstones were re-implemented into the new game. As well as for pvp players having the abilities to lower and raise draw bridges, set traps for the enemy like filling up hot boiling cauldrons upon a castletop or rolling giant stones downhill and even have prisoner pkers get judged by Lord British and thrown into a pit to fight some type of monster and if they make it out they could get some sort of survival achievement or something if they die they can get teleported to a chaos shrine or what have you. - Thanks for reading our posts, much love and respect!

 

Pickpocketing. Please, please, pickpocketing. I want to be a thief again!

 

AND a complete *lack* of auction houses and global chat.

 

@SilkTRT: Definitely need pickpocketing! +1

 

Immunity to being stolen, pickpocketed, etc by other players for the players that are not currently in PvP.

 

A return of the original Ultima dungeons sounds pretty interesting! Nice suggestion.

 

Hi! I was a big Ultima Online fan since the beggining and I am thrilled about Shroud of the Avatar.

But I really don't like the idea of not being able to see everybody, because one of the best things about UO was that there was always an adventure going on and that usually meant getting to know different people and playing "with" or "against" them. It was fun anyway.

My suggestion is: since the system is going to select the players we'll see, we should have an AREA or perhaps a GIANT TAVERN that would be a meeting point. In there, you would see and interact with everybody and everything in the world. So it would be like a pub where you would meet people and start new journeys and adventures with them. This way you could allow new unfiltered "connections" to happen, so the system would identify new "friendships" and remember them for the rest of the world.

 

There are lots of suggestions for gameplay that are good or competing, but hopefully I'll take a different track here.

--Have at least one hidden waterfall in the world, that once you find it, you wish you could download a wallpaper of it. (And maybe, if you find it in-game, you can!)


--Have a dungeon starting at the bottom of the mountain, that goes UP. The final boss battle is on the top of a windswept peak. Upon his death, you can walk to each side of the mountaintop and recognize the landscape.


--Have tavern/gypsy caravan/ campsite musicians play the kind of tunes that folks will be doing their own versions on YouTube.


--Give something to folks who wish to do mods/artwork for their own design in the game. (Similar to the kickstarter goal that lets one design their own heraldry, though this could apply to something else.)


--Have plenty of role-playing situations where "right" and "wrong" can be a big gray area, and a character has to live with the good and bad of their decision.


--Make some memorable companions and choices in their personal quests that players will argue on the boards why they loved/hated one character over another for it.


--Hide some things where we may miss the significance of it the first couple times we walk past, then, one day we'll stop and say, "How could I miss that?"


--Make sure our character, no matter what quest choices they make, can find love, loss, friendship, betrayal, fans, critics and a home...even if it's not an actual "home", but perhaps a community that fits their particular roleplay needs when they need a place to rest their backside for awhile.

Thanks

 

Building on the first of Thamin T's suggestions: have "exclusive" art unlocked in the game's site when the player attains certain achievements in game, specially exploration achievements.

 

This may have been suggested already... but on the topic of achievements:

I would love for SotA to use the native achievement systems of any platform it's running on. So if it's on a PC and it's purchased through Steam, it would be cool if the achievements were in Steam. On OS X and (if it's eventually released on iOS) - I'd love if the achievements were in Game Center.

 

- A fully integrated virtue system that has diffrent effects on the player and the world.
- Day and night cycle that affects the player. The player has to get sleepy and rest, on the map he should camp and can be attacked like in old ultimas.
- player should get hungry and thirsty. My first english word i ever learned was crop as a little german boy in ultima 5 to avoid dying from starvation.
- Pretty please let the lights go out! If a player wants it bright, he should bring torches with him. It kills that much ambiente to has every place with lights that never goes out with nobody that fills the laterne! So only lights that are logical in theworld should be in place and refilled. So light can be very important in game and shows to everybody that you enters the civilization or with darkness the danger. I rember entering a dungeon in ultima 5 without a torch seeing nothing. I was frightened instantlly, and so should that be.

 

- realistic swordplay with not only clicking the right move but making gesture.
- Ingregencia for casting and making alchemie.
- Diffrent sight and agression levels for monsters in game. A wolf pack should act as a group to take advantege and run away from brutal slayer players, not coming one by one to get slained and plopping exp.
- i am totally fed up getting exp for killing! At least finding another way than killing can give more exp for it is more virtues.
- Players should be allowed to play evil but than with consequences.
- Interaction with objects based on skill lvl of player and his own abilitys not only clicking at a objects for example to play a song.
- Make the world feel as real in its very own rules as possible. THAT FOR WE LOVE LORD BRITISH.

 

- Monsters should be there they are for a reason not to get slained by player for exp. For example if wolfes are near a gypsy camp there should also be some garbage from the gypsys that the wolfs wants to eat. And only attacks if the player gets in their way for their meal, running away if they have to suffer.

 

- Every item in game should have a durability. Of course weapon and armor but even stones can melt as the dragon hit them with fire.
- if possible a working physical engine like in ultima underworld! A item roling down and plobbing into water with a platsch gives you great feel that the world is real.
- Things that are destroyed should fall apart in a realistic way not cracking always the same way with a boff. And of course they should not disappear . A Item can stay there you droped it until it is completly destroyed or somebody takes it away. In that way players would surely give newbies money for cleaning up in bigger guild driven worlds.

 

A few things I Would Like to See in SotA

- Make it beautiful. Lots of forest, meadow, wilderness area to explore.

https://www.google.com/search?tbm=isch&q=glacier+national+park
https://www.google.com/search?tbm=isch&q=yellowstone+national+park
https://www.google.com/search?tbm=isch&q=yosemite+national+park
https://www.google.com/search?tbm=isch&q=sherwood+forest
https://www.google.com/search?tbm=isch&q=arches+national+park

- Skilled craftsmanship in the design of everything from castles to knives.

https://www.google.com/search?tbm=isch&q=neuschwanstein+castle
https://www.google.com/search?tbm=isch&q=medieval+architecture
https://www.google.com/search?tbm=isch&q=hand+forged+knives

- Make it as natural looking as the technology will allow. Add options to increase realism for players who have decent gaming machines. Remember that when SotA comes out the graphics will be competing with the next gen consoles.

- a) Tessellate the ground surface or find some other way to make it rough, bumpy, gritty, grainy. The ground should not be perfectly smooth in the forest, desert, wilderness. Flat ground with just texture to break it up does not look natural. On the other hand, don't allow tesselation to be turned up so high that it looks unnaturally bumpy. Roads and trails should be worn smooth like in real life, not rocky like the Unigine Heaven benchmark.

Nvidia Water And Terrain Demo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EfrSaIY0YQA

- b) Implement cloth physics so that cloth items have natural cloth characteristics. Cloaks, capes, robes, dresses, flags, banners, tablecloths, etc. Also bear skins/rugs, lion skins/rugs, leather items. I hated how bearskins in Oblivion were stiff like boards.

Realistic Dress Cloth Physics
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qRcp2zFdxg

Realistic Banner Cloth Physics
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Seg6Zhvmbko

- c) Realistic Hair and Beards (think Gandalf)

Nvidia Realistic Hair
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YF8CUSiPDJ0

AMD TressFX
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TFkm4hpDYgY

 

I have a few ideas of thing I'd like to see in Shroud of the Avatar.

Day/night and seasons: I'd like the day/night cycle to be disconnected from real life day/night, maybe having the day/night cycle lasting for 10hrs so if you log in at the same time every day you can still experience the full range of days nights and sunrise and sunset. Also have the full range of seasons in a condensed time scale, eg: over 2 months for all seasons.

The Highroad/Thieves road: Have it possible to traverse the rooftops, jumping from roof to roof as a way to avoid guard patrols in the cities, or access to windows or balconies to rob houses (if robbing houses is implemented).

Exploration: One of the things I really enjoy when playing an RPG is exploring the far wilds and finding ruins, huts, small villages or even just finding an interesting part of the forest, like a nice stream or a stand of ancient trees.

Weapons and Armour: Something I dislike about a lot of games is when you find an item that you really love the look and style of but it's really useless in combat of it's stats become outdated. I'd like it to be possible to keep an item relevant either by having it upgradeable or having all items more or less functionally equivalent and only aesthetically different.

Transmogrification: I know this had been mentioned before but being able to play as a werewolf or werebear or any number of ware creatures or as liches or vampires.

Plants and trees: I would like plants and trees to have their own growth cycles, having trees drop seeds that grow to new trees or have a player collect seeds and plant them where they want. I'd also like all the plants in the game to have their look and names modeled on real plants. With things like herbs having use as reagents for things they're used for in the real world, like comfrey for healing bones, or pepper for preserving meat. Cutting down too many trees in one area should have an effect of deforestation on the persistant world, requiring lumber to be imported from 'wilder' areas or player initiated woodlots.

Homesteading: I think it would be really cool to be able to build a log hut out in the middle of nowhere and live as a hunter or carpenter. I really hope there is some support for this. There would be disadvantages to living so far from town, like the distance to travel to sell or purchase goods. A hut that's not used for some time, maybe a month or so, should begin to degrade until it becomes a ruin that might become a home of various monsters or wild animals.

The Main Quest: There's been much talk from the developers about the main story and how detailed and immersive it will be, but I'd like the option to sidestep the main story if I want to and wander off into the world and find my own way, becoming a fisherman or woodcutter or blacksmith. Not everyone in the world should be the hero, especially if they don't want that kind of role.

Random Encounters: I would like to have lots of random encounters when exploring, with different encounter types in different areas. Like encountering some corrupt guards trying to extort money from a traveling merchant when on a major road, or encountering a merchant with a broken wagon wheel when on a less traveled road. These encounters would be good settings for people to chose how to respond to the situation based on their own moral compass, for the example of the merchant with the broken wagon wheel, you might help him fix the wheel, you might rob him, you might kill him, you might ignore his plight.

Sorry about the wall of text but I am really excited about this game!

 

More adventures of all kinds, I'm not a farmer.