Is SoTA a "modular" game?

I've been checking out the releases since R1 (even if I didn't play some of them much), and it feels like this game is not really innovating in a true sense of the word. I realize this is an 'indie' game, and resources very limited, but it was marketed on kickstarter as something much different than the end product is starting to resemble. As a layperson to game programming, it seems as if the team is simply taking assets and engine code that is already available for purchase, and simply adding modifications so it will have the 'flavor' of an Ultima game - not actually designing anythings new - from the ground up that is - of substance. I may be wrong, but why do they have to use industry standard products to produce this game? These are the same tools, after all, that many other game producers use to make a new 'GAME', hence the glaring similarities. Sorry, but I expected much more from the legendary Richard Garriott.

 

Innovation is more about the game play mechanics than the tools or graphics.

It is pretty early in development. But innovations so far that I think of (some old that vanished in modern games and are now being reinvented in a better way) include:

- Experimenting with a new semi-random (but adjustable) combat approach
- Extreme housing with extreme customization potential compared to other MMOs
- A hex-based scene system that could allow different versions of a scene to be loaded at a given spot to change a world state that we see.
- Control points that change access scenarios for parts of the game based on the control point condition at the time.
- Clear design for player run towns - above and below ground . Not an after through.
- Interactive dialog with NPCs to not just deliver quests but to learn about the game world.
- Different day vs. night schedule scenarios for NPCs.
- A more robust system of selectable magic schools than many games offer, not boxed out of any by an initial class choice.
- One of the more highly-customizable skill systems (no predetermined classes)

These are just a few out of the gate in a few months. No doubt there is a lot of work to be done still.

Nothing wrong with the flavor of an Ultima game wrapped in a modern game engine of any sort, IMHO.

 

I respect your points, but are all of them good? The hex-based instance system, for example, seems to be putting off a lot of potential backers.

 

They're writing all the game engine themselves. They're just using unity graphics. Future releases will get the benefit of the game engine they're built.

 

The big question that comes to my mind is.. what exactly do you think was promised that they aren't living up to?

Usually I find people are victims of their own preconceptions. We thought this would be more like UO or whatever other reason. I don't particularly feel like they're not delivering what they said it would be. As for the rest.. if they were to build the game from the ground up that would probably add another year or two to the development time and budget and that's just the game engine.

Using assets that are already out there vs creating them yourself is a trade off. Creating things from the ground up is very expensive and time consuming. I have no problem with them using already available assets on a small budget. The alternative is needing even more money and development time.

Truth be told I've been impressed at how quickly SotA has come together to reach this point. Especially with its budget. They have exceeded my expectations in most areas.

Sure there's a few things I'm not happy with. This was their first kickstarter and they made some mistakes and some commitments are probably more than they bargained for (ie Coats of Arms etc). But I'm pretty happy overall.

 

Cost. Cost, cost, cost. Cost and cost; cost. Also, cost.

To answer more specifically:

The underlying instancing and player sorting tech is quite novel, to the point that Portalarium could probably license it to others. Of course, if they do it well, that's the sort of thing that the player *shouldn't* notice!

They team is using some Unity add-ons like Shroud (the cloth system, not to be confused with the "Shroud" in Shroud of the Avatar) and NGUI -- but those are things which, frankly, are filling holes in Unity's out-of-the-box functionality concerning features Unity Technologies never bothered to really finish. As far as I can tell, most of the interface looks like it's being built ground-up by Portalarium. I definitely haven't seen anything on the asset store that replicates the housing decoration system.

Like most developers using 3D models and animations from the asset store, they're tweaking these things to better fit their art style. (In some cases, one might wish that they'd tweak faster on the animations and appearances, but it makes sense for them nail down the gameplay mechanics more before focusing on that sort of thing.)

 

You can think of Unity as sort of being the "metaengine" that various companies working on RPGs (inXile, Obsidian, Portalarium, Daedalic, Limbic, etc.) are building their "engines" on top of.

 

Technically, Unity IS the game engine. It provides the power. The devs provide the rest.. the steering, leather seats, frame, paint job etc.

 

I figure movie studios have prop departments and backlots -- rarely does someone say, "oh, I saw that coffee cup in this other movie!"

 

Iron is a solid industry standard. You can do lots of things with iron. One can still create something totally new and innovative that is built of iron. It wouldn't make any sense to research and develop a totally new substitute for iron just so you can build a totally new and unique kind of fence.

 

I think the problem is not so much that they used an existing game engine, but rather that they used a "freemium" game engine that has a lot of issues. They are probably realizing by this point that every "innovative" feature they want to implement is becoming a huge battle against the engine.

 

The Pro version of Unity that Portalarium uses is $1,500. It is by no means free. (Of course, Portalarium probably has some kind of special deal with Unity Technologies). Unity has its maddening quirks, as does every game engine. Its documentation is mediocre, but it's better documented than any other engine I've seen.

But ultimately, few engines allow the same kind of rapid iteration that Unity allows; you can edit scripts and shaders while the game is running, and when you save them, Unity will (not always, but often) successfully recompile and relink them *while the game is running.* Doing SotA in something like Unreal 4 would have required a lot of C++ level hacking and taken much more time.

 

Thus the emium in freemium. Still in the world of game budgets, $1500 is pretty much free. Unreal has it's issues too, but in general I would avoid any engine that tries to run on both pc/console and a phone...

 

Considering the veteran developers are apparently huge fans of Unity they must have done something right. I will defer judgment to those who've been in the industry for most of their lives.

 

Have you used Unity?

I have it up on machine right now, grading homework assignments for my GPU programming class.

 

Yes I have. It has a lot of bugs.

 

Bowen has a good point. Consider the list beyond Portalarium: Jordan Weisman, Brian Fargo, Guido Henkel, Chris Avellone...

 

They all do; it's a matter of picking the right tool for the right job, and dealing with the quirks as they come.

 

Another negative topic. It's too bad people don't realize the whole industry uses other tools to make games.

 

- Extreme housing with extreme customization potential compared to other MMOs
.[/quote]

I have to question this. What do you mean by extreme? What we have is very structured housing with no modification possible. You buy a prefab. The other game allows you to build whatever you want with wall, roof, floor, door and etc pieces.

Perhaps you mean extreme decoration? I would agree with this if we gain the ability to drop anything in our backpack onto the floor or table.