Final Wipe and Lot Selection

I feel you I may take vacation so I camp at my desk and keep trying to log on...lol. Along with the hundreds or thousands of others doing the same thing.

 

This is a valid and disturbing point. Will login wait times interfere with lot selection? @DarkStarr

 

Great new !

July is a LAUNCH day for Online Players.

Cant Wait !

 

Not launch day, last wipe day.

 

Service optimizations and hardening are the primary focus for the tech team moving forward. That is why there are fewer new features between now and final wipe.

 

Very true.

But also the exact reason why politicians like this are almost universally despised.

 

I don't remember it saying on the kickstarter that the game will never officially launch. This isn't some new way of development, this is changed development since they would not be ready.

I thought the same thing, why the sudden shift launch hell or high water. I can only assume that it perhaps has to do with money, I have no idea. I will say this discussion is much more tame then DEV+ as I think most of us have given up at this point.

This is great news for those who want to start cornering the market and making money off of other players.

There is a lot more then the story which is delayed....to an unkown date in the future. Things like roving encounters that I remember hearing would be in just after they changed the map....now, sometime in the fall maybe? I have no idea.

 

I'm cross-posting my initial post from Dev+, as I don't like the idea if having my thoughts on this Final Wipe schedule being barricaded behind a paywall only the elite can access.

**
So let me get the crux of this post straight.

1) Portalarium wants to end wipes, beginning MMO play in earnest.
2) They want to do this before the game reaches a state that could be reasonably called finished (inc. mechanics, story, etc).
3) They want to (finally) give Single Player backers something to do, with a list of "features" that reinforce the strongest fear SPers have been expressing for a very long time: It's going to look like a solo MMO.
4) Further to 3 [Redacted because Dev+ ]
5) Portalarium doesn't want to call it "launch", and couch this by suggesting SotA should be exempt from what "launch" even means.

Basically...it seems as though they want to do away with the wipes the MMO side have gotten so tired of and simultaneously give SP something to play by launching (yes, launching) an unfinished game.

This isn't good.

It doesn't matter how Portalarium wants to define what launch is. This game is already available to the public for purchase, and suggesting SotA be in a perpetual(?) state of Early Access is not a free pass. For the MMO side at least, once the game is persistent and players stop having their progress reset, it's launched. It's launched unfinished, incomplete and lacking KS features, but still launched. There is absolutely no getting around that.

So please, have some integrity and respect your backers enough to call this what it is: the launch of an unfinished game.

The alternative is your "detractors" using the vernacular, and I gotta say I wouldn't even disagree with them.

All that said, I strongly disagree with this schedule.

This should be unavoidable:

1. Episode 1 as near to feature- and story-complete as possible
2. Final wipe
3. Launch

Heck, if you're that worried about players jumping ship between wipe and launch, you could turn off the MP side completely and turn on SP until July! Let the SP testers and story lovers go nuts with the companions and your 1/3 of the story! Listen to their feedback and let them feel like you're listening to them without being distracted by MMO concerns! For once, since this project began almost three years past, let SP have the spotlight and its backers have the feeling they're getting the chance to alpha test their side of the game, as MP has.

But don't launch it unfinished, then try to say it isn't a launch at all.

 

If you think about it tho - the wipes *should* end. Finished or unfinished, happy or disappointed, the wipes aren't promoting people to get in and use the game, and that's what has to happen, epecially in a monthly update for the life of the game cycle. So I say, bring on Final Wipe.

 

I am still very excited about this and look forward to all the work we do being permanent. Thank you for dropping this and now those that have been talking without letting anything out. Can be more understood to what exactly we were all talking about without actually saying anything

Thank you Starr! Thank you Portalarium!

HUZZAH!

 

Of course starting the persistent world incomplete isn't promoting new people to get into the game either. All the players waiting for a complete product will come in and feel robbed. New comers will come in, take one look at the game and then write it off as another half arsed soft launch mmo, leave a negative review, process their steam refund request and never come back. It's bad news all around.

Yeah wipes should end. When the game can stand on it's own as a complete product (as opposed to standing on the promise of one day being one).

 

Having the single player offline be available as an incomplete product and having to have bits and pieces added as they get finished is pretty disappointing to be sure. In my opinion, it should probably be finished before it is released.

What happens if I kick a lot of ass and cruise through the first storyline in a week or two? Then I have to sit on my hands for X amount of months until they supply the next section? Not to mention how the extra things like roving encounters and other missing mechanics will actually affect gameplay.

That is not the ultima I was looking for.

 

I was told to think of it as a story that just won't end....with endless extras added....that it will be continually worked on.

 

YAY! A most excellent release today (I can't believe I spent all day decorating my lot, hah!). I am so pleased with how awesome SOTA is turning out to be (not that I had any doubt ) and I will probably just not sleep between now and July. (-).(-)

 

May need to update the boilerplate in the Player Marketplace that starts "Once Shroud of the Avatar launches ..." in light of the thread revelations.

 

Eventually when Episode 1 is finished, how do you think Episode 2 will be released? In bits and pieces or will they add filler content until Episode 2 is complete and then launch Episode 2 in one fell swoop?

 

My wild assumption would be that Episode 2 will be one fell swoop, with regular content being added leading up to that point. Really, after a game is optimised (which is like a neverending task, just put to a lower priority when the game reaches excellent levels of stability and performance), it frees up tonnes of dev time to work on other things. At least, that is how I would do it if I ran a game development team- which I don't know the first thing about (or making games for that matter).

 

My Lot selection is on my Birthday, so YAY!

 

Good question. The answer would be what was told at the Duke/LOTM roundtable in March 2014 where there would be a "final wipe" and the full story line both offline and online would be ready and launched. However, there would be no lot placements or player housing (there was no mention of POTs as they never existed in March 2014). The launch of the entire player housing system would come a couple months later. This would allow the player base as a whole to be able to experience the full story in sp offline, sp online or mmo online and explore the entire world well before worrying about placing houses.

Portalarium could still choose to make that focus. Drop all work on the entire player housing system and focus squarely on finishing the story first and foremost. This is from someone who think player housing IS one the main selling points of the game, but not more than a storyline that matters.

 

I never even heard all that....some interesting stuff.

I have been told over and over you don't need housing and PoT's as they weren't that big of a part of the game, seems that has become the opposite.