I think our game is still in Beta state in Development

I think our game is still in Beta state, we can play what there is of it, but it's still an incomplete game. I can't even say that Ep1 is finnished, because there's always changes because of Ep2 that still effect it's gameplay, thus, it is still in an incomplete state.

It's because of the way we are currently funded and our early funding, that we may be still in Beta state in our development. We have yet to have a complete game until we reach Ep5. Having only 2 of 5 means we are less than 50% near our completion.

I say this to remind myself that we are still very much an unfinished game, yet have almost completed or (Ep2) second stage of completion.

Star Citizen lagged in their development the same as we did, yet they did get much more funding. I mention them because they too were crowd funded.

Question:
What other 100% crowd funded games can sota be compared to and how have they been doing?

I'm having to re-arange my state of mind when thinking about where we're at. I find that sota can't be justified as being in any way failed, when development in production of it continues ahead until it is complete.

Things may be super slow, but the concept and development in it is still of very high quality and interest.

What games are our 100% crowd funded peers to compare with?

~Time Lord~

 

I don't know of one.

Gosh..... The excitement when Richard started this. It was really fun and exciting I dumped a ton of cash into it and along the way it just didn't develop the way I had hoped. I don't like all the instancing.

Richard and I and most people have something that goes on with us.
We think of something great aaannndd. It doesn't work out that way, Now this is my opinion. Many may like the nostalgic original Ultima style but I was looking for the UO and in my opinion the game needs to change to just that. Open world UO style....... I say that but I think the whole thing needs a re-do. I hate to say that knowing many really love the game but even watching yesterdays live stream I can tell Chris feels the same way and having heard him talk in the past I know he wanted it another way.

Where do we get the funding though? Girls scouts already have cookies covered lol.

 

Soon they will have two games in development.

Then 3.

//the endless journey off mmo's

 

I think Roblox and Minecraft are also in Beta, still!

 

Curious to me is, the description of Richards new game states instanced.

Not trying to be rude but I wonder why he has instanced stuck in his head?

 

Seems like you get that funding via NFT land sales and you create a new company and game and begin work on an open world game with isometric view a la UO which is exactly what Demeta seems to be doing.

 

If you look at the base core functionality of the game, I don’t see that in any way in a “Beta State“.

Is there a lot of systems that could work better? Oh hell yes. Ant then there are of course bugs etc…

I just look at the game from where are we right now? And then you move forward from there.

 

= Beta
Maybe even Alpha

I say this game never left Alpha. Yes Alpha

 

Can you provide me an exact example of a system in our game that is in this supposed “Alpha” stage?

 

The whole game.

Can you provide me with an exact example of a a complete system in this game?

 

Yes! Can I equip a weapon and level the associated skills for that weapon, and then use that weapon and associated skills appropriately to kill various creatures throughout New Britannia?

The answer to that question is yes. That’s the base core functionality of the combat system within Shroud of the Avatar currently. it’s not is your supposed “Alpha” state. It is working correctly.

 

Why the constant balance/nerf of this system if it is complete?

Look @Anpu , I get it. I understand your love and defense. I used to be there also. The fact is, this is still in an unreleased state and in light of the new news, we are all doomed to accept the current state of the game, period.

I only want this to succeed and I, along with many, feel/think that it is toast. I love your optimism. I love your loyalty. I even love that you think this game is done. I would love to think that it is, but I would be a fool.

I truly wanted this to be a success, but that is only framed now by a bar set by fealty. I don't buy it. I'm crushed and sad.

 

I know that people still want to badmouth SotA but the game is actually pretty solid. Just because there are features that you feel are missing doesn't mean that it's "alpha" or "beta" stage code.

 

What MMO do they not constantly adjust balance?

 

Sounds like Sota but after a point the crowd would only stand to pay so much.

This crowd is not going to raise over 10 million to do any major overhauls. Especially considering all that has gone on/ not happened and the current player base.

 

Touché, my friend. However, I could probably pull some posts here citing your dis-love of the nerfs that have happened. Lets not get mired down in this but move to the real problem. The game you have now, is the game you will have then. Chris has moved on.

 

If you aren’t here to have actual and meaningful and constructive discussion of Shroud of the Avatar as it is currently, I can then only say that I hope you have a wonderful and nice day.

 

Not sure what it would take to reduce the instance load times to FFXIV levels but from what I've read - in order to get closer to an open seamless world in Unity, you'd need to use DOTS (data oriented technology stack) and Unity has struggled with it. It's their new-ish approach to creating apps that takes advantage of multiple cores on the device. It converts C# to HPC using something called the burst compiler. Maybe DOTS could be applied to help fix the load times in some way?

From a gameplay experience UO was pretty satisfying being able to roam from town to town, like Britain to Vesper, or Vesper to Cove, etc without any significant load times. Sometimes there could be a hitch in certain areas, we called it the server line. Changing facets wasn't painful either. This allowed the mark and recall system to function well because load times weren't cumbersome.

In Shadowbane - you could walk, swim or fly from one side of the continent to the other, and even swim or fly from one continent to another if you had enough stamina, without load times but they used a custom game engine.

The only time you'd get load times are when you'd first enter the game, used the runemaster to teleport to another town or if you died and returned to your bind point. And the load times were relatively quick, initially it was only a few seconds for using the runemaster to teleport to another town but then they made a pvp balance change and added 10 seconds before you were allowed to teleport using a runemaster (during that time you could still be attacked) then the actual load time was only a few seconds after that - unless there was a large war going on then it took a bit longer. Recalling to your bind point was around 10 seconds including the animation. Chat was persistent during the majority of this so you could still communicate to your guildmates.

 

I am here to have actual and meaningful and constructive discussion of this great idea, but I don't think meaningful and constructive related to my comments align to what your ideas are. In other words, We disagree, right? You have 'actual' ideas about how the game is, and I have actual concerns about how the game is. You aren't concerned so this conversation is moot. Right?

I appreciate you, @Anpu

 

Hey, lets not forget, that game like Escape From Tarkov exists and while not exactly comparable to some high populated POT, but it sure does perform quite nicely and Is ok looking game.
Made with Unity.
https://unity.com/madewith/escape-from-tarkov

EDIT: Just to add. Tarkov maps are quite huge, ranging to kilometers and you can actually shoot someone over kilometer away, with target and using scopes, so map is loaded with great distances.

It does have big team, but it did not start this big.

Anyhow, Unity is able to do nice things, but I bet the early development of Sota, from proof of concept to product, left original architecture ideas there and never could start from fresh, so to speak.

I just cringe everytime I see someone blaming that its just because of Unity, that we have, what we have.
I'm developer and I know that sometimes you just have to move on faster than you want, because money drives projects. You just have to get stuff done, with the codebase you have. So no blaming here, I get it.
I have spend so many hours with this game, that even it lacks here and there, overall, I had fun, so..