Is there *any* way that SotA could be monetized the way Star Citizen is doing it?

But did you kill them?

 

Space games make me lol, sadly with such a small team it will take much more time to get to where we need to be

 

This is why Star Citizen is so difficult to debate around; there's an almost cult like adherence to the game that distorts reality. I've bolded just one point because it's easy enough to refute from Roberts himself;

https://robertsspaceindustries.com/...13432-Letter-From-The-Chairman-On-Dogfighting

The module wasn't delayed by 2 weeks... it was over 6 months late, the first actual gameplay after that December 2013 statement turned up in June 2014.

Regarding the single player, I've already quoted the game's own wiki discussing the schedule. The relevant quote is here;

“​

The plan is to give you guys a final polished S42. Alpha and Beta access are absolutely on for Star Citizen in terms of the different modules (Hangar, Dogfighting, Ground Based combat etc.) but S42 will be a standalone game given free to all those who have backed before Star Citizen launches. Having said that, as S42 will be using all the elements from these different modules, and improving the game based on the communities feedback as they are released for Alpha, you will all be making a contribution to making S42 a much better game. What we won't be letting people see early is the plot / story and missions, as we want it to be a ground breaking, immersive experience for everyone when they first play the campaign and are introduced to the level of quality we want to bring to the universe.

”​

–Erin Roberts on January 17, 2014[27]​

You're not getting the single player together before game launch; you'll get to test individual modules individually. Where as you can already play snippets of single player here in Shroud; as well as entire first drafts at game wide systems, such as crafting, housing, and free roaming combat.

None of which means Star Citizen is a bad game, and I hope it's not as I love space games too (when I can upgrade my motherboard, I'll be buying Elite: Dangerous as I played the original and all it's sequels too) but it's fans are ridiculously invested in hyping it up. And because of a well known psychological trait as well;

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunk_costs

What actually is happening is Shroud and Star Citizen are following completely different development paths; the Shroud Devs have stated time and time again, and it even says now on the game launcher, that they're working on basic systems first, and doing polish later. Star Citizen is almost All Polish All The Time. And until recently, and very late, had no gameplay at all. And is in a different genre. And is sitting on the biggest crowd sourced pot for a game to date where as Shroud is appealing to a small crowd of nostalgics so far...
And both are on the cutting edge of a brand new funding mechanism. In an area which isn't yet of proven value. Neither are scams, I should point out, but that doesn't mean that software magically becomes guaranteed just because it's crowd sourced either; One only has to think of Duke Nukem Forever to see that, like any creative art, just because someone loves the project with all their heart and waits patiently for it to arrive, the creator doesn't always produce something great out of the intellectual property. Some stories just never really get told the best way they can be.

Whether either game then will survive development remains to be seen; personally I'm against Shroud's focus on housing because I see it alienating friends who might want to buy in at the entry level because they feel excluded from the greatest actual draw of Shroud currently. And that might not even matter if enough of us are happy with our pre-order houses to buy Episodes 2 onwards anyway. We're in completely uncharted territory here...

Just don't believe that because Star Citizen is ooh so shiny now it's doing anything better than Shroud. Or worse. Unless you like shiny pictures of space ships whose models largely don't exist yet. Again this is easy enough to check up on; for instance, the art pipeline for new ships was moved only recently from Austin to Santa Monica... Game development is messy, messy, messy folks. You're deluding yourself if you think Star Citizen can avoid that too. Everyone has little hiccups on the path to success. Or doesn't spot the hiccup that sometimes indicates a serious illness until too late for that matter...

Personally I think monetising Shroud like Star Citizen is the worst possible thing they could do now. Already most people I know feel locked out of the content, so we don't need more people heavily financially sunk into the game directing it's development path. What we do need is a huge media blitz telling people how the game they'll be able to buy at entrance price is going to be SO AWESOME. Here's the homes you can get with gold! Here's how we think heraldry will work for YOU! Here's the kind of cow you can ride! And then they may be more tempted to spend in the store too because they'll be thinking "I'm going there to play that, definitely!" I'd certainly get at least 2 more friends signed up if they could see a house they could absolutely be able to purchase for instance.

More community less shiny, I say.

​

​

 

I agree that SotA does offer more gameplay at the moment, it seems closer to an actual finished game. I have played Arena Commander and the racing is quit cool, I also have seen the FPS demo and the Persistant Universe video, which are all awesome, but I still have a hard time seeing how these will eventually mesh together in a fun game. Truth be told, I feel the same about SotA in a way, with the instanced scenes and the different online modes and the player towns.

I also agree that SotA should concentrate more on selling the awesomeness of Housing to the world, however they have one big drawback: Chris Roberts makes it very clear (at every opportunity) that nobody needs to buy these ships now: all can be acquired in game with ingame effort and coin. SotA is much less clear about this, and in fact you really have to search for the disclaimer that Lots will actually be available in the game itself too. I also have no idea how many, and how easy it will be to acquire these. It seems much more complicated for SotA to introduce new lots, then it is for SC to have ships available for everyone.

Currently people that come looking in, get the feeling that they have to buy in *now*, else they will be reduced to second hand citizens at release, and will need to "rent" a room or a house from a luckier player. I know that with each episode, new lots will become available, but a lot of people will not want to wait for that. They want to play the game and have a decent chance of earning a lot for themselves. Just as in SC, where everyone gets a cut of the universe. And you need a lot before you can get a House and join the rest of the players in this awesome and rich feature.

 

This is true to some extent but if you buy a fleet of ships from the beginning, you have an advantage. I want Port to have as much money as possible to let LB go wild with his awesome ideas. I think there are a lot of "unborn lords" out there that need to find this game.[/quote]

 

FYI: My name is related to the saying in Polish language and got nothing to deal with Star Wars / space games / etc. My favorite genre are RPG and strategy games - and that's what I play most. Don't draw some conclusions out of nothing. And most importantly: Civilized people discuss subject instead of who talks about it.

Nope. Star Citizen didn't overprosmise anything more than Shroud of the Avatar did.

And in before you'll try to complain about Star Citizen delay again - let me remind you the original SotA promise:
"Shroud of the Avatar: Forsaken Virtue is the first of a 5 game series of full-length, stand-alone games (each using the same game system), referred to as Episodes 1 through 5. Estimated availability of Episode 1, Forsaken Virtues, is October 2014, with Episodes 2 through 5 estimated for subsequent yearly releases."

So where's Shroud of the Avatar: Forsaken Virtue? It's almost December 2014 and I'm pretty sure we're much more than 6 months away from any possible full-length stand-alone game. I just made a quick search and according to the wiki it's planned to be released in second quarter 2015. I wish them very much good luck with that.

No, it wasn't.
I think you confuse it with another space game - Elite: Dangerous - which dropped it's singleplayer offline mode (they only have "solo" mode which is still forced online gameplay but with no other players to fight you).

Oh dear lord. Guy is talking about pissing, monkeys and all of that while using mildly offensive language, picture, and huge orange fonts. Not to mention again: Tons of misinformation. Sorry, but I'll skip replying that. It's not worth my time.

I did exactly what people do to defend SotA - discuss things that are not here.

Ok, I'll end replaying here. Looks like you have more interest in talking about what some people said somewhere "in the internet". I don't. I'd prefer to stick to the facts.

Again: can we stick to the topic, not what some people do on some forums / what they don't?
Kind reminder - topic is: Is there *any* way that SotA could be monetized the way Star Citizen is doing it? And why current monetization doesn't work.

I see you come back to discussing fans / community again further on talking about sunk costs - FYI: the same effect applies to SotA and it's clearly seen in this very topic, only you yourself refuse to see it. But please, please, let's stick to the real topic of a discussion instead of talking about some most hardcore fans cause we won't be getting anywhere with that.

Sorry, but never rely on that wiki. It's full of misinformation. I's got barely anything at all up to date and plenty of things wrong.

There's going to be three parts of singleplayer game:
1) Squadron 42 - which is a core non-linear campaign
2) Mission packs - first one coming soon after the release
3) Universe itself - which is basically most of the persistent universe run on your own private host.
Contrary to what you said: 1 and 2 can be obtained at any time, not just an original campaign long ago. And: yes, people can buy ship with an access to the multiplayer part alone, but it's their conscious choice.

You will be getting single-player before the launch, again: wiki got old info, incorrect by now, but yes - it's going to be much later than in SotA.

And what exactly is that thing you are trying to say? Cause from what I seen so far: you're trying to throw mud on Star Citizen in some very silly way (that game got plenty of problems and disadvantages, but what you are talking about got nothing to deal with reality) most likely basing your opinions on what you read somewhere online and dismissing anything that points out misinformation / FUD.

We've been going through this already. There's a difference between polish and fundamentals. I don't care about polish, I seen enough games in development, even worked one while ago, to distinguish polish from something that's fundamentally flawed. No amount of shaders, lens flares or lighting effects will fix low quality models and low resolution textures. Fixing this will not require more polish - it'll require what's basically an earthquake in the game development, as that's something you can't afford doing in any normal cycle.

And perhaps it might happen, sure, you seem to very much believe that crowdfunded games are developed in fundamentally different ways than anything else - I don't see that in SotA, Star Citizen, nor most of the other crowdfunded games, but - until that happens graphics will keep on being a major and primary barer of entry to the new players and a reason why SotA got so much trouble with achieving any success close to the one Star Citizen got, even though it belongs to the genre with by far bigger customer base.

Well then, I suppose Star Citizens wins in that matter by a mile. The amount of community events, community-created groups (and how organized they are), community-created content and well: the community itself is by far greater in Star Citizen than SotA. Basically at the moment the only thing in which SotA community surpassed Star Citizen community is Wiki creation. SotA wiki while still being far from perfect and containing some outdated informations - got quite a lot of them and tends to be really nicely organized. That's almost complete opposite of that wasteland that's Star Citizen wiki.

It must be - first SotA "full-length stand-alone game" is supposedly delayed till Q2 2015, while Star Citizen release of similarly-completed portion of the game is planned for very end of 2016.

Though this thing here is a very strong argument why you won't see game world changed in a fundamental way like some people here imagine. There's simply not enough time. Doing anything that would significantly improve game reception from people who didn't buy it yet will either be not possible before the release date or will push it much, much further (think: half a year or more).

Star Citizen works in a very different way than in SotA - out there it won't matter if you joing half a year after the release or 2 years after the release - it's a game based on player skills, the fact that your character can die and that you can loose your property means that universe sort-of balances itself over time - every player got a fair chance to achieve something unique no matter if he is new or veteran with a golden ticket. SotA like most of the RPGs will have (to a limited degree: already has) a clear progress curve with peleton owning most of the things, being most powerful people, and being able to snatch unique properties long before anyone joining later can even earn enough cash to do that. That's the price you pay for having things like persistent properties or a clear, level-based character progression. Person who bought the game half a year after SotA release will have next to no chance of catching up with (by now) the big fishes and - if they play online - they're basically pushed down to the role of service providers for them. It's a fairly common thing in sandbox MMOs and also a reason why this sort of games tends to have a large "core group" of very-long-term players that work as a consistent source of cash by far better than in the other types of MMOs.
That said though - SotA does have one notable advantage and something very unconventional for sandbox MMOs - it's going to be designed to accommodate single-player experience, meaning that you'll be able to do a lot and really enjoy the game while not being in a core group of players. Question is - how is the game going to handle that? Cause right now it seems more like an afterthought from MMO part, which makes it very troublesome for anyone interested purely in a single-player RPG - game basically plays like playing any random MMO alone. Experience is just breathtakingly bad, cycling around a grind more than anything else. Obviously though this part is far from being finished, so the reviewers are still waiting for the Shroud of the Avatar: Forsaken Virtue.

 

Like you i have invested heavily in both games, having been made aware of SOTA directly (crossbow) and indirectly later (Galactic Inquiry) via Star Citizen. The 2 things i liked best about SC are Chris Roberts and high level PC gaming. I was late to both parties but getting LTI through gifting made me spend MUCH more than i would have. I like in game advantages. The advantages seem far greater to me in SOTA so i have shifted my gaming budget focus. I want to play and enjoy both games, i will alternate between the two. I expect them both to be around a long time. SC to me started out being a bit different than other games. Now with far more funding than they dreamed of it is expanding its quality and scope. I dont mind the delays because the end result will be all the better. I cant say why SOTA has not taken off in the same way but i think other posters have some good ideas about that. I had to hear DarkStarr on G.I. for me to take a second look at SOTA and pledge. What i call the "wow fatigue" kept me from pledging the first time. Ever-quest was dominant before wow and it took a bit of persuasion for me to invest in SOTA as i had tired of that genre somewhat. Im sure other people have numerous other reasons why they come here or stay away. Port has helped SC and they have worked together in the past. The developers also often know each other and have worked together on and off over the years. Some former SC folks have stared: http://descendentstudios.com
What i would like to see is continued and greater cooperation between like minded crowd-funded game companies. I would like to see them offer pledge packs that include multiple games. I don't know or care about office politics but i think it could be made to be mutually beneficial to all parties. I would also like to see them work on a certain level of standards and common open development processes. In the funeral industry we have something called the The International Order of the Golden Rule. I would love to see Chris Roberts and Richard Garriott and their colleagues do something similar. I would love to see a new generation of game makers trained by these venerable people. I want to see what they have created keep going, grow and improve over the years.

 

Well said indeed mbomber!
I too would love to see the meeting of great minds that can escape large corporate influences which takes gaming as a business. I actually believe that what you are saying, is beginning to happen in small ways. SC and SotA may never mix their cash, yet they are challenging the gaming industry by continuing to survive and thrive.
Corporate influence can have dire effects on games we know and love to play, where the game may become discontinued in order to accommodate the needed player market share of another that the company is wishing to sell. An easy example of this was the great success of the Command and Conquer game, which went through many releases, yet in it's end, was not as financially profitable to continue as it was to scrap and drive those players to the other products they were offering. What they found in the C&C game, was that once players liked playing it, "they didn't want to play or buy anything else", which then caused all their other products to not have the funds to become what they wished to become.
In the corporate world of games... games die for the wrong reasons... not because they were no fun, but because they could be too much fun, which doesn't help sell anything more
~Time Lord~

 

well

steam early access is the only reason im here so i guess it helped a little

 

I haven't paid much attention to Star Citizen but looking at the main page that "sells" the game:

You get the sense that the game is it's own entity and that the developers are really involved with the community. Heck if I wasn't on a Mac, I'd donate right away!

Whereas you first go to the SOTA homepage before you log in. What do I see?

"Lord British Returns!"

We then get the team that names "Ultima" and "Ultima Online". The video instantly references Ultima as the legacy of Richard Garriot. I believe it's this kind of messaging where SOTA kind of gets lost. Sure, Ultima was one of the RPG series back in it's day but times have moved on. I think that among the core Ultima fans, the game has pretty much hit the point where they're no longer a viable base to keep funding the game. And yet, SOTA is very much basing it's community/branding on Ultima.

I think I bring a different perspective because I pledged because I liked the vision for SOTA. I still do. I never played the Ultima Games. I never tried UO. I don't have the same experiences or memories as most of you do. So I never went in expecting SOTA to be like Ultima and I was actually concerned the game WOULD try to be like them because I was interested in a unique RPG experience, not the secret continuation of a franchise that had it's last single-player entry when I was 8. From what I read, SOTA is being built to be it's own beast and I like that. But Ultima is definably how it's gift-wrapped.

But I think this is the difference between SC and SOTA. SC is standing on it's own. It is it's own identity. SOTA, no matter how many times it's tried to say it won't be Ultima, refuses to distance itself from Ultima. Therefore SOTA is, I believe, having trouble reaching a broader audience.

Forget the graphics, forget the gameplay-the graphics are honestly acceptable and the "pre-alpha" can be fun-it's the issue that SOTA continues to fail to escape the shadow of Ultima.

 

I think Star Citizen is going to have Mac and Linux builds, just like SotA.

But I think that is an interesting perspective that Star Citizen isn't being marketed as the spiritual successor to Wing Commander/Privateer as much as its own thing. SotA is very much marketed as an Ultima/UO spiritual successor.

 

I completely agree with this statement.
This creates a great confusion and anger. Gamers supporting UO gaming style are disappointed because SotA is nowhere a UO spiritual successor and new generations players coming from WOW (or whatever new WOW clone) do not give too much importance in SotA because they think that it is a UO successor.

I just posted on the general forum to ask Portalarium to give us once and for all a clear answer on which game they want to do. It seems that they are trying to stay in the fog and do to pick, but in my opinion we need to choose one game style (themepark or sand box) and move forward.

 

I think SotA is far closer to UO than a game like WoW.

This is absolutely a UO spiritual successor. It is not a 100% UO clone.

 

Yep... "what they said"

Everything is painted Ultima here in SotA, and that's probably why SotA was able to gather it's initial seed $... but at some point in the future, it will be it's game design which will have to carry the product.
Here is Asia, online medieval games are very popular. Online games are so popular in fact that they call the kids that play them "game gangs" and it's natural to see many young people here filling the internet cafe's where most are playing "Lineage", which also had our Richard Garriott's hands in it's development.
So, now all SotA needs to do is add all the language programing... but I think that will have to wait for our game's future development
~Time Lord~

 

I believe that Star Citizen offers more for nostalgic gamers.
It was announced as the spiritual successor to Wing Commander, a game series many are very fond of. Also the first screenshots looked fantastic and the screenshots even had this Wing Commander style. On top of that they offered an open multiplayer online universe.
So basically they took an approach which is quite the opposite way as SotA. SotA was announced as a multiplayer game with single player mode, the spiritual successor to Ultima and the first screenshots looked...err not so good

If you take a look at Kickstarter and crowdfunding in general mostly the single player games are very successful. Most of the MMORPGs even fail to be funded at all. I believe that this is the case because, if you go the nostalgic route with a game and offer a spiritual successor, then you should cater to those nostalgic players in the first place. SotA offered something new, a game that wants to be both - single player and MMORPG. Single Player fans fear that there will be too much MMO in the game and MMO-fans fear that there will be too many single player elements in the game plus some might not even understand how this will work and what SotA really is.
So I believe that if SotA would be a single player RPG similar to Ultima 7 with an isometric 3D view announced as the spiritual successor to the Ultima series and they would have posted great looking isometric screenshots and announced on top of that that there would also be an MMO-mode then they would have had much more success. Just my opinion.

 

Maybe we have a different way of thinking.
In what exactly do you feel that SotA is a spiritual successor? The external skin is surely inspired by UO, from a first look SotA looks very similar to UO, I would called it a UO themed MMO. However, if you look in depth most of game mechanics are not taken or inspired from UO (e.g. level system, pvp, gathering, crafting, combat, etc.).
Then again this is just how I feel. This doesn't mean that SotA is a bad game, just I feel that it's simply not the successor of UO. It is just another MMO like WoW or ESO , etc.

 

* WoW is class based where everyone has the same exact build for their class that is min/maxxed
* WoW is level based.
* WoW has content that is level gated. You go from this level zone to another level zone
* WoW is completely linear because of the level gates
* WoW had bind on pickup gear, killing the player economy
* WoW is quite literally pay to win now that you can pay a fee to skip to max level
* WoW doesn't have a deep story.
* WoW doesn't have an offline mode
* WoW doesn't have everyone on one server
* WoW doesn't have friend's lists to select who you want in your instances
* WoW doesn't have player towns and non-instanced houses
* WoW doesn't allow you to loot anything when you kill someone
* WoW has immersion breaking PvP battleground that you poof to and from
* WoW is utterly faction based
* WoW has no crowd sourced assets
* WoW doesn't have player performance spaces to encourage roleplay
* WoW is a gear treadmill
* WoW has rote combat where you perform the exact same combat rotation
* WoW has more UI than visible screen space
* WoW only lets you craft gear to cater more to the gear treadmill
* WoW doesn't have ghosts or a neat death system
* WoW doesn't integrate PvP into lore and quest (like the Oracle questline)

* UO and SotA are both classless
* UO and SotA are not level gated
* UO and SotA are themed around virtues
* UO and SotA both have you actually speak to NPCs
* UO and SotA both have persistent player housing
* UO and SotA both allow you to loot from someone in PvP where as almost no other MMO on the market allows this.
* UO and SotA both have players end up as ghosts at death as opposed to an immediate respawn
* UO and SotA both are firmly designed around player crafting and player economies
* UO and SotA both avoid bind on pickup gear
* UO and SotA both avoid traditional Raids that are the bread and butter of every other MMO on the planet
* UO and SotA both avoid the gear treadmill for Raid bosses
* UO and SotA both are completely non-linear
* SotA's crafting is closer to UO than WoW or anything like that, where crafting is a profession and you are very limited in only being able to ever do more than a few professions

How can you say that SotA isn't an UO successor or that it is just another WoW?

 

Reply in the other tread

 

Shame that there is misinformation in this thread about SC - like how can one even write that solo play has been dropped..
It's funny really, but it is to be expected.
I am really looking forward to see what SC can do with their AI programming for stuff like ships, npcs and bartenders even.
Enough of that.

I think a few mistakes have been made in the Sota design and campaign decisions, like choice of engine and handling of stretch goals.
Nevertheless I am a big supporter of Richard Garriot and the teams efforts.

I also think it is too late to achieve greater amounts of new crowded funds for this episode 1 prior to it's release.
Portalarium needs to attract new people more than anything.
But this also depends on what exactly Portalarium wants to deliver to the gamers - this isn't really communicated clearly enough.

Just three things that I feel could help attract folks and thereby the funding:
**Release recurring videos like "Chris Roberts - 10 for the chairman" where Richard Garriot every week or every second week would speak for 10 minutes or so about whatever he wants to, but hopefully about the game - like the vision and current state and such. He is charismatic and intellligent and he makes people stop and listen.
**Increase graphic fidelity by lots and lots, sooner rather than later, with highest priority or focus on character and monster models and animations (and haircuts).
**Make the very first web page one arrives at "sexy" and attractive hmm...

**And Cryengine for episode 2 ? - make it so Number One**
http://www.kingdomcomerpg.com/

 

SotA episode 2? That is unlikely. I just don't see a major engine switch in between episodes. However, Unity gets upgrades all the time. I think we'll see SotA get bumped up to Unity 5 before the Episode 1 release.