Interesting new interview with Richard Garriott - release estimate included

I see this argument a lot. However one of the telethons I watched complained about the weeks they have spent on one man band.

 

Agreed, I was going to say the exact same thing... I looked in the cash shop yesterday cause I buy an item now and then to signify my continued support that contrasts with my deep disappointment in the basic design decisions (I'm a siege perilous player, so nothing for me here)...

Regardless I still admire our devs, and their resilience, so I went to buy something and lo and behold... there was nothing new there that interested me.

It had been a while since I had checked and I expected to see hundreds of new items.

Honestly I thought, well they must have fired their cash shop artist... something happened.

I think there is so little effort put in the cash shop that it looks bad right now, not the other way around.

 

If it is so trivial then maybe they should "trivially" add the large, healthy selection of craftable wearables that tailors can make based upon the the extensive in-game clothing style forum poll they made over three years ago.

My prediction: not happening.

 

That does not preclude his logic... its a small effort... and as I just said it does look bad how little effort they are making with it right now, so your point is valid as well, just out of context.

 

This.

There are more variations of cloaks that you can no longer obtain in this game, then there are variations of monsters you can battle with, skills you can use, or quests that you can derive joy from. I would like to see the %of dev hours used each month on providing telethon rewards or new store items or fixing bugs related to rewards or store items.

It is a failing business model of low risk, low rewards, and diminishing returns. At some point the appropriate risk must be taken to lose money for the reward of a better game. That approach would fall in line with proven winning business models.

 

What concerns me more is that just one month ago, Richard clearly stated he hasn't even played the finale portion of the main campaign yet. It's one thing to design it on paper, but an entirely different thing to see how it plays out once implemented and part of a larger system.

So I'm not sure what they're smoking in Austin, to continue to believe that they can play test, balance, polish and fix issues around it in a couple releases. It's taken them much, much longer to polish a single quest line, let alone the critical finale.

And let's not forget the many other things they need to fix... Perhaps this interview was misquoted or he misspoke, or whatever. In one month we'll know the answer either way.

But I do wonder, who on the dev team has played through, from scratch (new character), the entire story and its quests -- if only to see how the main campaign feels, but how the other game systems interacts and supports it. I mean, if Richard hasn't done it yet, who else on the dev team would play this from start to finish?

 

One thing that has bothered me for a long time is the sheer amount of release dates that we have been given and the obvious in accuracy of them. Every time a release date has passed so far the game is so incredibly far from being ready that is simply doesn't make sense that they actually believed that release date was accurate.

Which only leaves two options: either they really did believe it which is incredibly disturbing considering how far there still is to go, or they knew the release date was inaccurate but willingly gave it anyway.

If the former is the case, it says volumes. If the latter is the case, it begs the question as to why it's okay for them to give dates that they know are inaccurate.

 

With release we will get an increase of players for sure. Every game needs to maintain a critical mass of players though and I assume they just weren't confident that their game is in a state to keep that attracted. A good decision IMHO. I heard them say by the end of the year they hope to give a solid release date this time. *looks at the interview*

 

So what you're saying is that they really did believe that those release dates we're accurate, but then later decided to postpone launch because they realize they weren't ready at the last minute.

You may call that a good idea but to me that says poor planning and the lack of awareness of the true state of your project.

Considering the amount of experience we continuously hear about and the amount of money they have raised based on that experience in the game industry, something doesn't quite match up.

 

I would love to know that. Maybe their planning was poor, maybe their publisher told them to postpone it.

 

Funny thing King Gariott would say he didn't play the entire story yet... he said numerous times his job within this project was "playing the game"...

or does that mean just playing with markee dragon for a session of *I'll self-censor here...*

I honestly cried the day I learned that this would be a Chris Spears game and not a Lord British game... even tho I learned to appreciate Chris for some of his decisions (no offense)...

I just invested alot because of that "lord british game" bait... hard reality check :/

 

For sure. It's an one shot deal. If they miss, there won't be a second chance. Not even on a 2nd kickstarter.

 

I could've sworn I saw articles and patch notes saying the release was being pushed out of 2017. I can't seem to find any of them now - not for lack of trying. What's coming up on google isn't useful with keywords related to this game and release dates - tons of **** floods it.

So, either I'm insane (this is entirely possible, and even likely to be honest) or it's just buried by Google's algorithm. Anyone help me out? I'm pretty sure it was announced in a release instructions that the official release was being moved to 2018 for reasons that don't matter.

Just to touch on the validity of this and what others have said, official release likely doesn't matter at this point. Especially since the game has been persistent for over a year. Anyone interested in it already tried it and left. The hardcore's holding out are likely a small number, as anyone keeping an eye on release, and waiting to play until then also knows they are at a MAJOR disadvantage that grows more significant by the week by waiting to play. The PR it gets for its official launch will be tangible, but barely. Most sites covering this game, the very few that are left, use the not-a-launch in last August as a tongue-in-cheek shot at the forever beta/early-access trends nobody is fooled by anymore.

Anyway, official statement of the only-the-developers-believe-is-a-launch moved to 2018? Anyone have a link?

 

UPDATE: Yes, it was!

In the Q4 update (Found here: https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/forum/index.php?threads/q4-2017-schedule-update.100684/)

DarkStarr said: "When is Launch?: You have probably noticed that we do not list one of these releases as a launch release. While we feel we are definitely getting closer to launch readiness each month we do not believe that launching before the end of the year is going to be the right time. Before the end of the year however will be the right time to announce a firm launch date; so stay tuned!"

I thought this was part of a release instruction or patch note post, but alas, I got that part wrong. It's part of this much discussed post from this past September, linked and quoted above.

 

Funny, when there was the hoopla about the horse they got in the unity store for free and then sold for 50 dollars a piece they (Starr Long) even posted about how MUCH work it is to get that model into the game LOL

 

I'm still pissed we raised 10 times over the infamous "stretch goal" so we could have mounts and instead we get purely decorative items that do not create any hype...

Hello marketing department, here is stronger coffee.

 

Implementing an item for the crafting system is not the same thing as generating an add on store item, esp. the purely cosmetic add ons.