Final Wipe and Lot Selection

Geez, the old adage if it doesn't apply to you then it probably isn't meant about you....I was merely mentioning a situation that could happen. If you got offended by it that wasn't the case and you are making it personal.

 

If I'd thought it was directed specifically at me, my offense would have been more than mild. As the accusation was directed at PoT owners in general, and I am a member of that group, the accusation applies at least partially to me, so, yes, it was personal.

 

I didn't know there were groups like that...I was using generalties because I thought we are all part of the same game, should want rules in place that is good for the whole game not just the few. The unfortunate part is anyone CAN do it because nothing is stopping it, not that it will be done for sure.

I was generally only commenting at the time of the situation presented. I didn't want to get it this far off...so I hope you can let it go.

Should I be offended when people make whole threads to call out those of us who don't feel the same way as them?

 

Not entirely.

After regular wipes (R26 past thursday, and R29 at the end of april) there are usual land rushes toward NPCs towns.

But after R31>R32 wipe, nobody will be able to place their lots at all. There won't be a classical land rush. Instead, there will be a strictly timed lot claiming sequence. At first, no lots can be claimed anywhere - not even in POTs.

Then, after some hours, the ability to claim ONE lot will be opened by the top tier pledgers (Lord of the Manor), in subgroups dictated by age of pledge, amount pledged extra, etc.

Then, after a 64-hours period, the ability to claim ONE lot will be opened to second top tiers (Dukes), with same details as LotM.

Then, Barons, Lord/Lord Marshals, etc. down to the latest Ancestor-tier pledges (the lowest one with lot deed in their pledge rewards). There are 91 groups, each one with a starting time, from when they can begin claiming. The process will last the entire R32 release.

Once every pledge level had a chance to claim their first lot, the game will open the ability to claim further lots by pledgers (the top tiers have more than one), and to claim lots for those who purchased lot deeds from the add-ons store. This will start on 24th august.

Then, I suppose that R33 onward, everyone with a lot deed purchased ingame would be able to claim as it is now: first come, first serve. But this sentence is my own speculation.

The entire schedule is here: https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/?p=56208 - if you have a pledge with lot deed, I suggest you to find exactly WHEN your claiming window will open.

Just the gypsy introduction and the very first Love/Courage/Truth path scene. If you know what you're doing - and by then you will - it'll take a very short time to reach Soltown.

 

I honestly have no idea why they don't have an add-on store for single player offline.

I was surprised when they asked if it was okay with people if the stuff in the multiplayer add-on store was available for free in single player offline. I didn't vote because I don't care but that's just a dumb buisness decision.

Why wouldn't a single player offline player interested in housing buy a house in the add-on store? Why wouldn't they buy prosperity tools and special pets and cloaks?

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Hey @Astrobia,

I'm not going to disagree with the general bent of your argument, which is that RG pitched the project in a certain way -- and kudos for digging up those quotes -- and that as it currently stands, there's a lot of room for the game to shape up in those regards.

I want to address some specific things you said first, where I have have some disagreements with you, just to get that out of the way. I'd argue that the devs made made efforts in a lot of regards to make this a distinct game, and a great game. Sometimes players focus more on the things they don't like than the things they do, and I think when people paint a really negative picture of the game it isn't fair. There's a lot in this game that's great and a lot more to look forward to.

Regardless of how this goes, I think SotA will stand out in a positive way compared to other MMOs on the market, and in some respects compared to other single-player games -- though this is where I think the game needs the most work. Where I get really frustrated with the game development is where I think the devs are squandering the game's potential. Even if SotA will be a good game in that respect, it has a potential to be a lot more.

Sounds like his complaint in that particular case is about lack of mob AI; that monsters are just attack machines, doling out the same attacks over and over, never moving, and don't have good group mechanics. Its still something they have to work on, but its a different issue. I know some people have complaints about the glyph system, but I don't think you're addressing RG's issue properly.

Complaints from some about the glyph system are in fact I think why the devs are having close combat rely more on free attack and are making it playable with the locked bar, and then moving combos to be primarily ranged/magic thing. They're also talking about putting in more active damage avoidance and other things. Personally, I hope we still get combos and other things in close combat. I'm not sure this has anything to do with any promises RG ever made, though. Part of the point of how combat is designed in SotA -- from my perspective -- is to bring it a little closer to the tactical elements we saw in the single-player games -- before it turned into a clickfest in U7, then later on in UO. They still have some ways to go, IMO, but there's a foundation there that they can build on.

What are you thinking of in terms of interactivity, except for lying down in beds and dropping items anywhere and moving and picking up NPC items? Lying down is something they said they're planning to put in, as well as NPCs lying down. The functionality you get when lying down is another issue, and a larger topic. I still disagree with a lot of backers on the importance of dropping anywhere. I think it'll just be a mess -- and a bit silly -- in multiplayer, and not necessarily worth it as a unique feature in single-player. I would rather them work on camping, and give priority to setting up camp and dropping items at camp, over dropping anywhere. Personally I think that would be a better use of the dev's time.

There are some interactive things in the game though that were not in Ultima 7 and more things that we know are coming. We can break through cave walls and will be able to bash through doors. RG has promised more "Lord British stuff" like that. They want to put ladder climbing in, though, alas, they've said that's been delayed. No confirmation on climbing in general, but I hope that's in. The weather and astronomy in the game is richer than I've seen in other Ultimas, and other single-player games. I hope this gets further refined down the line, so we start seeing regional weather; but its a start. There are a host of ways that magic could interact with weather and the environment, and I've seen every indication the devs would like to do this. Whether that's water affecting lightning, or setting bushes on fire, or raising sand with Gust, or a million other things like that. There has been some confirmation that they're going to go down this path. For example, there are areas in dungeons where there's a crack of light shining through, and they've confirmed this will help Sun magic. Also that rain will affect magic in different ways.

So, anyway, I want to get back to this quote and a lot of the others you've brought up to talk about what Ultima games mean to us, what people thought they were backing, and some disappointments of dev priorities with the game.

I think most of us going into Kickstarter knew -- or should have known -- that SotA was going to be a hybrid type of game that combined multi-player and single-player. So, the primary complaint isn't that the devs are working on multi-player systems like housing, parties, or PvP. In fact, I think most single-player fans wanted to play the game online with all of these features -- they wanted to play the game multi-player, and care about the multi-player features, too.

What single-player fans do care about is the experience they enjoyed playing the single-player Ultimas, and had hoped -- based on what RG presented at Kickstarter -- that he could translate that into a rich multi-player experience.

When Ultima Online was originally created, that was the idea they had in mind actually. The developers said that they were playing the single-player Ultimas and thought, "Wouldn't it be great if I could play this with my friends?" A lot of things in UO, however, didn't turn out as expected. The ecology system -- where animals in the wilderness preyed on each other -- was meant to be a source of quests. When a dragon was looking for food, he might attack a town, which would basically create a quest to save the town from the dragon. Players were a lot more anti-social than they expected, leading to big problems with griefing. The housing system turned into a mess and the wilderness disappeared as it became filled with houses, many of them ugly, with vendors hawking wares on the roof, day and night, through rain and shine. People used runes to teleport everywhere instead of actually traveling. Features that were staples in the single-player Ultimas and which players enjoyed, like hunger and darkness and NPC schedules disappeared under the guise of "realism v. fun" issues. Though combat was basically the same as it was in Ultima 7, the way it ended up feeling was really grindy, because it centered around going out and waiting for respawns all day, gathering gold.

So, as it turned out, to many single-player fans who had been hoping for a great multi-player Ultima, Ultima Online was a big disappointment.

But if Ultima Online was a disappointment, later MMOs were even more so. Since UO, MMOs have generally devolved towards a really unengaging model all around. Everything is about grinding and farming respawns, following quest markers, instanced housing, and no real consequences to your actions -- dying is meaningless, food is meaningless, travel is meaningless because of fast travel mechanisms, actions in quests are meaningless, everything is meaningless. Like RG said, they're just nice scenes where you can grind all day, or socialize, if that's what you want to do, or go on the controlled, railed experience through the story. This is where we get the term "theme park MMO."

But the worst thing about these "MMORPGs" is that they aren't even RPGs. In an RPG, you go an adventure, you manage choices, and your actions, or lack of actions, have consequences. Things in the world matter, and they work like you expect them to. All of these things are missing from the generic "MMORPG."

In reaction to that trend, RG comes along with his Kickstarter announcement with a message that he'll bring RPGs back to their roots. Which is why he titled his idea the "Ultimate RPG." The quotes you provided are all relevant. He was going to do a multi-player game like Ultima Online, but while avoiding some of the mistakes they made which alienated single-player fans. This was part of the appeal of re-orienting the game around being a SMO -- or selective-multiplayer online. He showed some barebone demos which involved going to fight skeletons at a cemetery -- meeting gypsies in a roving encounter as their wagon traveled along the road -- the encounter having a single-player like chat dialogue -- entering a town which pretty much looked like a well built, immersive Medieval town -- etc. Again, nobody expected it to be oriented only around single-player, but it looked like it would play out like something single-player Ultima fan would like. RG agreed to an offline mode, but told players that they would likely choose to play it online, because there would not be much benefit to going offline.

Since then, the most disheartening thing has been whenever the devs won't even commit to saying this is a role-playing game. Or when they won't commit to design choices that favor of role-playing mechanics over generic MMO mechanics. There are complaints that certain features would "force role-playing", and sometimes it feels the devs heed this idea. It also bothers me that features like travel, regional weather, local vendors, local banks, control points are always discussed in terms of "the regional economy", as if that's all that's at stake. What's at stake -- IMO -- is a real role-playing game. The type of real role-playing game that RG pitched at Kickstarter -- his "Ultimate RPG." The goal would be to put the "RPG" back into "MMORPG."

The regional economy is part of this, but only part of this. Its not a justification for these features -- role-playing is. Role-playing is the only justification for how the regional economy works. The goal should be to create a real, interesting world that is fun to explore and adventure in, and where your choices have consequences. Not just a shell of an RPG -- a "theme park", which most MMOs have become. And not, as some detractors have begin to say, "a glorified chat room," oriented mostly around social activities.

An issue right now that's getting in the way of the game moving away from the generic MMO model, IMO, is how grindy and level-oriented the combat experience is, and how at some times, the devs don't seem to think this is a problem. Changing monster spawning and respawning to feel organic is not a priority. I know that there have been some debates on the dev team about this; I don't know where they stand. Currently it feels like scenes are spawn rooms, where you're expected to run around in circles all day killing monsters as they respawn. An invisible level system applied to monsters. This creates an experience where you have to find level appropriate areas based on hand holding like skull markers, and if you don't, you're virtually invincible because of passive defenses. Many monsters look and behave exactly the same in different scenes, and even have the same titles -- ie "Timber Wolf" -- but have different levels, invisible to the player. Queue the "conning system", which has just put in, and colors monster nameplates to give you another helping hand. Giving a reason to turn on the nameplates, while RG originally said he'd prefer people be able to keep the nameplates off.

Another thing that's bothered me is how the devs have given very little deference to arguments about immersion -- something single-player fans hoped for -- and instead seem to always favor pro-sandbox arguments. Of course, in a multi-player game, you have to always expect other players will do things you don't like -- whether in PvP or in housing -- and that's not what this complaint is about. Its not about controlling what other players do. The complaint is really how much immersion seems to be an afterthought to the devs. Whether that means things like palm trees and Obsidian towers in Owl's Head, or umeltable snowmen, headless masks, or wagons that lead to places that aren't even on the map. The fact that vendors can advertise what they're selling through their name plates. I have to be completely honest... the housing and vendor system drove me away from UO more than Open PvP did. I saved up a lot of gold in UO (through grinding, farming) for buying a house, but in the end decided it wasn't worth it. So, I just quit and never came back to UO. And I think its causing a lot of single-player fans to be driven away from playing single-player online, and instead gravitate more to playing single-player offline. Splitting the player base -- which is bad IMO -- and going against RG's original statement that they'd want to choose to play online rather than offline. The devs have talked about features like re-texturing houses based on biome, but this feels like too little, too late.

Also against the spirit of the "Ultimate RPG" going back to role-playing roots IMO goes into design decisions on other issues that favor convenience for grinding over role-playing. This includes the original design decision to make reagents optional, which I hope they're rethinking. It includes not including things like hunger, following the model of other MMOs which have basically made food junk items that you dump on merchants for gold. Currently, torches also don't lose durability; I hope we see that they do. This also includes watered-down PvP content in control points, IMO, too, because I think control points need to have some RP purpose and I think PvP needs to have RP purpose and not just be about "capture the flag" games. I understand not everyone is going be in exact agreement on all of these RP-oriented features going in, for fear they'll create tedium, or other reasons. And we have those debates here on the forums. But the thing that concerns me most is the extent to which the devs are ruling against them, except when "regional economy" arguments come into the picture -- or any "economy" arguments, for that matter -- and how much they go with the flow of the other design decisions they're making -- ie with grinding and sandbox content prioritized. There are RP oriented features they did include, like regional banking and vendors. But the justification for these is always "the regional economy" and not role-playing. This was meant to be the "Ultimate RPG", not the "Ultimate Economy Simulator." I also think more players support these RP-oriented features than the devs think, and they're certainly in line with what they promised with "going back to the roots."

So, I want to end this by talking about the things I love and am looking forward to in the game, some of which I've already mentioned. I love that the devs are sticking to the "regional economy" concept, though I wish they'd justify some of those features more on role-playing grounds. I love the detail that is going into weather and astronomy. I love that now, through skillweaving, we have something like spell composition that we haven't had in the Ultima games for a long time. When spellbooks came into Ultima, spellcasting turned into a matter of clicking on the spell you wanted, and that removed some of the sense of discovery. Spellcasting is going back a step back to its roots, when you had to enter words of power. I love the potential for magic to interact with the environment and with weather. I love the small "Lord British features" whether they be breaking down cave walls or walking into a campfire and being set on fire. I love the design of a lot of the dungeons. I love the basic setup behind the selective multiplayer design, which can sort players out to create role-playing experiences, whether its for the story, or so that a scene can feel as isolated as its supposed to feel.

So, like I said, I'm not negative about the game -- there's a lot to love. And I'll continue to support it. I do share the frustration a lot of others here have when I think its potential is squandered or compromised -- when too many things are done the "generic MMO way," because of whatever reasons. Whenever it feels like an uphill battle to argue for RP design choices.

Some people are more frustrated than I am. I would just remind them of the great things that in the game, and not only focus on things they're frustrated with. Secondly, also that the only way to advocate for they want in the game is to do so in a positive way. There have been a lot of personal attacks between different groups of players, and by some players against the devs. That gets us nowhere. The devs I know are trying to create a great game. And I'm pretty sure all the backers want the devs to create a great game, although they might have different opinions on how it should be done. Personal attacks prevent players from finding common ground with each other -- and I think most players do have common ground. It also doesn't help to stay away from the forums, because the devs need to hear what you'd like to see, what your ideas are, what your expectations were. They need to hear those things advocated for in a positive way.

I'd also encourage the devs not to just brush off people who feel frustrated; listen to their arguments. Especially not the long-time Ultima fans, those who have been playing Ultima for decades -- maybe many since Ultima I -- and have been on this long ride. As I said in Dev+, the reason Ultima fans are so critical is they've been let down many times before. They just don't want to be let down again.

The devs can't make everyone happy -- and they should know this -- but they should definitely understand where long-time Ultima fans are coming from and pay attention.

At any rate, I'm still in for the long haul, and hoping that this turns out to be the Ultimate RPG.

 

There would be no point. Single Player Offline will have strong modding capabilities and will be hacked fairly quick giving people access to pretty much all items in the game anyway. They want the modding community to be very active with the game.

 

I do hope that every player knows this so they don't waste their precious time exploring a POT that has been deemed off limits to them / general public during this land rush. And, in the madness of the rush, it's quite likely that players will rush into POTs without noticing that it wasn't a PRT or an NPC town and waste time in doing so. Perhaps another reason for that overland map toggle?

 

It will be interesting to see how far the modders can go with SotA. There isn't a whole lot they can start to work with though as the game was not designed from the ground up to support it. A more technical answer for why is given in this post (stupid Dev+ paywall).

At the very least, they might be able to do some retexturing or swapping out some assets as there are third party tools out there to extract/import resources but anything beyond that is unknown.

 

I'm hoping the game defaults to toggling PoT's off. I have nothing against them but I can see the confusion for those away from the game til then.

 

Other single-player games that are easily moddable have extremely successful add-on stores.

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just fyi... NPC towns have a banner over them so it's hard to miss that. PRT should have something to ID them as PRT and I keep hoping Port will add something to help. I also hope for those that don't like POT they get a means to turn them off. But also, when you enter a POT it shows the governor's name at the top... NPC and PRT's don't have that. So there are ways to ID them and tell them all apart.

 

It's kinda funny/sad that you sometimes actually need that banner to know....you would think just entering one that you could....

 

Well hopefully they will at some point swing back around and change the overland map symbols... they've mentioned this a few time... luckily the only towns I care about are the NPC ones... so they are the only ones that have banners... therefore the only ones I pay attention to (except for my POT...). I don't bother with the non-bannered towns as they are either PRT's or POT... neither of which do I have a need to enter.

 

It also goes back to whats in the towns once you enter as well....like I was going on about in my Towns thread.

 

This is where my previous idea of right clicking on a town , which would show type of town ,owner ,lots free and services provided would help to save having to load the town up and find its not what you want saving loading time.

 

Despite those ways, there are still posts from players who don't even notice that. I just think there's an opportunity to address this because in the mad rush, you're not going to notice. I do think PRTs should have better way to differentiate itself.

 

absolutely, PRT's should be identifiable on the overland map somehow. Especially by land rush. Don't want to take away too much time from necessary pre-wipe stuff... but I think something simple for the PRT's is needed.

 

I agree. For what it's worth, since he himself said it was hard to discuss over Twitter, I sent him the link to this thread and invited him to talk to us.

Only response so far is that he 'Like'd the tweet. :/

 

Once the player commerce picks up POTs could quickly turn into the best location to have a house.

The land rush is more symbolic IMO. Where are they rushing to when we have no idea where the best location is going to be. Best NPC city is all we have to go by but content has a strong grasp on placement.