Four Years (or, Why free passes re: development have to stop)

Personally, I could care less about feelings. What I do see in this game is quite a bit of gap.
The "whales", and then the gamers looking around and poking and prodding.

One of the biggest question to the developers is, How can we mass market this game and still keep focus and feeling?

What I see happening, the gamers that have funded this game crying about how they are not seeing enough happening for them.

Changes they do not like hurting the outcome of the game how they see it. Not the development of an Alpha game that should be happening for others.

I enjoy this game so much. I see a problem with a few thing. People who fund the game, want to keep what they have attained creating the game.
And want to keep the gains when a game goes into "live" "out of development" "whatever".

In all fairness, they should keep something. But to share the game public with this many people who are ahead of any players, is completely out of scope.

How do you cure this? Shroud cannot ignore who has funded them through infancy. Looking forward, you cannot rely on the gamer class to
fund you when there isn't a level playing field.

I'm going to mention the biggest thing that the current player base hates to hear. Wipe for release. You don't want to call things what they are.
but the release of this game will happen and in this current inception is still Alpha. If everyone keeps the gains they currently have, the gap between
new player and "whale" or "donation" is so large it will scare away most player.

I am only trying to point out the elephant in the room.

A concerned player
who has pumped money into;

SWGEMU
The Repopulation
No Man Sky

 

I agree that some players having a head start could be discouraging to those who join later. However, that will always be the case. If everyone started with nothing, a month later they would all be far ahead of someone who just joined. You mention "whale" and "donation" as if monetary contributions have some connection to progress. They don't, at least not in the way that the game measures progress. Success in SotA is usually considered to be related to one's crafting or combat abilities, and those are certainly the only areas where the game measures progress. Those are not affected by the amount of money that players have contributed to the game's development, other than peripherally. (Owning expert crafting stations is one example, although these are readily available to anyone in places like the New Britannia Markets. Pledge armor and weapons may be thought of as another, but they are no better than normal starting gear. All that is paid for there is appearance.).

That brings us to the real starting difference: adventurer and crafting levels. Many have spent considerable time levelling these up, in the process assisting the developers by observing and reporting bugs. If those players had not been promised persistence, most of them would not have put in the effort to really test the systems, or have even played at all. That would have slowed development significantly, as Portalarium has a very small and overworked QA department. They rely heavily on player bug reports. To suggest that Portalarium now renege on their undertaking to preserve persistence and instead reset all skill points is not a realistic proposition. It would severely antagonise the game's most loyal supporters.

Yes, there will be a large gap at launch, but it will not be between "whales" and newcomers. The stuff that "whales" have paid for does not give them a higher crafting or adventurer level. The gap will be between the acquired skills of long-term loyal supporters and unskilled newcomers. I see nothing wrong with that.

 

I was of the same feeling a while ago, however that has changed. In any mmo or game where people play against each other anyone starting at any point in a games life not at the beginning will always be at a disadvantage to a degree. We cant have yearly wipes to cater for new players, there just has to be means for them to catch up to a degree and be not at a large disadvantage.

The combat and deck system only allows for X amount of skills to be used at once so in practise a new player specialising in a certain class/style can as good as match the ability of a veteran player who has pumped sp into numerous skills who is more versatile in their choice of deck but not necessarily more efficient in certain builds. Also the diminishing returns on higher skills is negligible, a level 80 in a skill is 90% of the way to someone at 120+ and it only takes approximately 180k to get to level 80, while it takes approx. 8mill xp to get to 120 in a normal skill..I was very against the SP system to begin with but experiencing it i think it might just answer the issues you are describing.

Also it would be impossible in a few ways to have a wipe now, imo. Firstly it would peeve the most loyal and active players who i feel 80%+ would not bother returning, me for one. People have not just bought and sold items out of game to which this cant be readdressed but they have also bought and paid for resources in a similar manner to raise skills, By making statements that there would not be a wipe in numerous locations the devs would have to have some serious concerns about the state of the economy/game for this to happen and it would be much better if exploits were happening to ban and remove the gains from players than alienate the whole player base by going back on a promise.

In short as i said at the beginning, any player late into a mmo is at a disadvantage, and so they should, but by hard work and clever play they should have the means of catching up those older players and while being certainly less versatile should have no issues in being on their level in specific builds and classes.

 

a bit late but found it funny. that is my bottom 5 list I mean for real all categories without a doubt the games I've enjoyed least

 

Please help me understand- by what criteria are you using to determine whether or not somebody is or isn't a so-called "whale"?

 

Berek, FYI, before you lock this thread it was not me that derailed it!

 

While your concerns seem very valid to you and many would have to agree with you, please take a step back and look at the bigger picture and compare and educate yourself with other projects in the game industry. 99% of AAA MMO titles take over 5yrs to develop with budgets that are 10x+ what Portolarium is working with. You even mention this, but I do not think you understand the complexity and time it takes. I can not speak from experience in developing a game, but I can speak from experience of IT development projects taking years to develop and implement. You also have to really understand they are a team of around 30 folks where as the big game studios have hundreds of folks working on a a title. I know you don't want to hear it, but please be patient.

 

The only reason I block people is for multiple instances of the making responses to my comments that could be summarized as "Your opinion is wrong and you should go away". Were you correct, then my block list would be blank, as it is not, I am forced to question the veracity of your claims.

 

I blaim Darkstarr. It all went down hill with his dance.

 

Honestly, I'm still hopeful for the completed game, as there's definitely a lot of passion from the developers and the community as a whole. The fact that people are so invested (not just financially, but with enthusiasm) shows how much people want the experience. A lot of the 4 years discussed is the "backdoor" stuff that really would never be shown to the public, but is obviously part of the crowdfunded/open development stuff.

Personally, I'm excited for July (not lawyering, bro!) and the anticipated story/lore information that will be released. A lot of the stuff has been so fluid and up in the air as they have continued working on the rest of the systems, and has not actually been put to finished form. I definitely want to explore and experience this, as that's the stuff that interests me as a roleplayer. For someone else, that may be bottom of their list, so not unusual that different folks have different experiences right now.

I will say, I do understand that some folks have gotten upset and impatient waiting. I hope they find something in the game they enjoy, and if not, are able to come back and experience the finished product once the game finally releases.

 

The term whale is funny. Ive put 5 figures in this game now as a casual hard core. Casual hard core is defined by working 50 hours a week, spending time with my family and then trying to play SOTA as much as I can. It's gotten me to adv lvl 92 and producer level 65 (grind grind grind). What has the pledge gotten me? Nothing...

How fast you advance in this game is determined by your play time. There are a dozen people in my guild far higher then I am in both period.... with far less money into the game. They simply play far longer.

Has my 5 figure pledge given me some kind or bonus with the dev's... nope. I have actually only talked the the dev's direct twice in the 15 months I have played. Both were short and to the topic of how to repeat a major bug I submitted. These guys arent calling me up on the phone to talk about our kids or asking me how my kids are. Ive never been invited down to Austin (I know I can get in like anyone else though). I think the dev's have some favoritism but that is directed at the people who do some pretty heavy things to help the social side of the game. Guild leaders, web sites, hospitallers, tv shows, radio, etc... One could argue that its good that they focus on these people.

So what bonus do I have for being a "whale"... well come look at my PoT and my houses. I've been busying decorating, buying add on store things and making some cool rooms. Absolutely nothing that benefits me in the game... In fact its terrible since I have probably bought 300 COTO's now from players with hard earned grinding gold just to buy 200+ Obsidian wall sconces for my Obsidian houses.

So get over the whale thing.

 

Ive said it a million time on the topic of QUESTS. We are at the 80% point. This is when things like quests, content, tying together finished systems and polish go in. The devs have been clear about this. The devs have said many times for many months now that quests are their priority and the are not happy themselves right now. Quests are on every future release path. Quests are heavily being fixed and worked on. Lord British himself for months has been play testing quests and opening Jiras.

If this game was a car being produced. You would have most of the car completed on the assembly line. The entire frame is built, the major components have been installed (engine) and now they are connecting all the cables together, installing the interiour features and electronics. Now, if for some reason they let you sit in and play with the car during this process like SOTA and you complained the radio did not work when the robot just put the thing in and hasn't plugged it in, I would tell you to do the same thing, wait until the car is finished being built. Calling the whole car a failure because the radio does not work yet? But, you can be constructive and tell them that you think the radio does not look right and is missing the ability to play a CD. On the filip side, dont complain that in your $10K Kia that it does not have a Mark Levingson sound system (aka Lexus), because as you should know, this dev team only has 11 million and not 200 million like a AAA game... so lower your expectations... you are not going to get a 11.2 channel Dolby Atmos sound system in SOTA.

If you have a problem with the radio after that.... then complain away.

But do so constructively. "Quests are incomplete, this game sucks.... go start over" is not constructive. "Hey, this quest still has issues, do you guys know about this issue, yes, ok thanks for listening good luck fixing it"

So I reject the "white knight" statements when I say this, largely because I also know they are incomplete and would be a pain to go through (which is why I have not). Im harder on the devs then most people. But sorry, in the case of quests, I give them a lot of room since its in heavy development *now*. This is the best time to give them constructive advice and not just call them failures.

This game is still under development, especially quests.


If by mid summer quests still stink and the game releases, I'll be right there complaining with you.

 

I'm casual soft core. Just wanted to add this to a 7 page post

 

Giving other game examples of what you like and don't like gives them something to work with. Feedback of you don't like it leaves them hanging, as they don't know why. For example much of the recent off forum feedback was the game is heavily instanced, with comparison to ESO and WOW which are both instanced games that people like better. The difference is those games have much more hidden much more open instances, so the devs realized it was not instancing so much as the size or the instance, and changed the game to have a larger starting instance. That would not have happened if people did not point to instanced games they liked, because the previous dev response is this game is instanced deal with it.

 

So you prefer the game to have a poor release because you did not give feedback about quests? Even if you think the devs know, giving examples of bad questing gives them an opportunity to reevaluate the priorities, maybe Lum needs a forum post to point to saying I told you we should not let this slip to DS. Maybe they just post saying we know, and here is our new update on what we or working on, what do you think? Or maybe you bring up something new they did not know about. EIther way it all results in a positive impact to the game that things will change,

The devs do not play the game the same way as you do, for example RG admits he teleports and resource cheats while testing the questing. Maybe in doing so he will miss that a quest chain forces a new player to go thru something they cannot possibly complete.

That is the point of the OP, that the time is now to provide critical feedback, and not sit back on your laurels and say the devs know what they are doing. Because they don't, the new start scenes was not planned, the devs did not have any idea this was a problem until they read less moderated new player critical feedback that said the start is in rough shape. So now they will spend months polishing a new start scene, when they was supposed to be polishing the rest of the game for release.

The point of the OP is they should have learned this from us a year ago, that is the players job when signing up to early access. To not give feedback means you cannot blame the devs for a bad release, the only blame should be given if you did give the feedback and they ignored it.

 

I didn't get passed this sentence, you didn't read my post which clearly speaks about constructive criticism... its whole point.

 

I believe the definition of constructive criticism varies from person to person. People want to express their opinion and not everyone is built or thinks the same. Its kind of like defining morality - I'ts subjective to each individual. IMO we should not put everyone in a box. Let Portalarium decipher what is good and bad feedback. All feedback is good feedback IMO.

 

I did read your entire post, and you are making the point NOT to critique the questing until after it is done. So please go read my post, that waiting until release to critique questing will lead to a failed game.

The devs do respond to feedback, sadly for this forum the latest feedback that they acted upon was obtained by someone scrapbooking other forums, a forum where people felt free to critique without someone saying it's in alpha it's not release so stop complaining. That is the point that I am making it is the purpose of early acesss to critique during development, not after. If they wanted no feedback until after something was done, they would be doing closed development like any AAA game pusblisher does.

I feel I have done my part to fix questing because both Lum and RG has responded to my posts saying thanks, we know, but more importantly what do you think about what we are planning to do about it? And indeed they have switched directions because of critical feedback before something is complete.

For example adding a more Morrowind/Ultima like keyword list, was solely done due to critical feedback. It was not part of the original design of the questing system that was presented as a natural language interface, they only added the keyword list after we gave feedback before release that the natural language interface is nothing more than a keyword searcher, and it makes much more sense to present a context list of valid keywords.

That change would not have happened if we said nothing because the system was not done yet, and just assumed the devs would actually get natural language parsing working since that was the original design (despite them not being a telecom or search engine company that can actually pull that off in multiple languages )

The idea of pulling NPC questing out of town and into adventure scenes was one I posted shortly after a settled in after final wipe and realized the quests was inconsequential and not what I expected as a spritual successor to Ultima story-line . After much critiquing Lum said it was because of a learn it was a restriction of doing quests in PC housing towns was what was preventing consequences.

I just did not come up with the name battlecamp, but they got the idea from my and other critical feedback to move starter quests out of town to fix the problem , feedback that we gave well before they finished Love because of understanding the fundamental limitation of the path they was on. It was also feedback that risked thread closing from people saying stop complaining the game is not done, despite the devs acknowledging a fundamental limitation in their existing quest structure that prevented them from doing better questing.

So when starter battlecamps get prototyped and those who want merchant access to starter scenes start campaigning for access, I will be the first one to say you realize you are forcing their hand to do inconsequential questing when asking for that? And that is critque that must happen before it is finished, because once the PC merchants are there it is too late to go back and remove them.

 

I know that there are many replies after this and you may have even changed your mind since, but I just wanted to say that I think the free preview was a wonderful thing because that trial by fire was what the team needed (I think the Steam community had to be so them about it but you ask for opinions you can't be upset when opinions are like you know what, you can't complain about the smell.)

Team: I love now get to work. If what you're trying to do was easy everyone would do it.