More MMO, less single & multi player

I think it's very clear at this point that they won't neglect story and SP. Hiring Tracy Hickman should send a clear signal. RG is already a great storyteller on his own (not fanboy talk here, he proved it many times in previous games) - together with Hickan they can do a LOT of storytelling.

So this aspect of the game is quite well taken care of.

All that remains is the hopes and pleas of the UO fans.

If the 2 million strech goal would be to change the OPO part into a true MMORPG pledges would skyrocket.

 

I believe that true MMORPGs are becoming more and more a niche-type of games. People who grew up with UO or even WOW are getting older and do have less time to play games. Maybe they have familie now whom they spent time with. So when they play they either return to the MMO they are used to to play with the friends they met there or they play shorter games maybe on tablets.

On the other hand younger players are already growing up with mobile games so they are used to shorter play experiences and spending much time on a MMO is not "fitting in".

Therefore I think that if RG would have made a true MMORPG it wouldn't be successful for very long. Sure those people who loved UO would play it but would that be enough players to keep such a game going for a long time? New gamers would flock in too, but those tend to not keep playing for very long (SWTOR for example). So they have to adjust themselves to the "new market" and implement types of gaming to accomodate to new customers.

So RG sees that there is a huge demand for SP-RPGs right now with all those successful Kickstarters like Project Eternity, Wasteland 2 etc. He also sees that less people play MMORPGs and those types of games are getting less popular (again SWTOR for example) and he also sees that mobile games are getting immensely succesful.

So he has to come up with something that could interest all three of those types of gamers. A pure MMORPG wouldn't work. A pure mobile game wouldn't work, too.

Making it optional so that you can play in OPO mode like an MMORPG could work or doing a fifth mode where you can see all of the players. But it may be too expensive to include such a mode.

 

Here's the problem with Shroud of the Avatar.

Most of the offline features seem pretty well defined. The online stuff seems to be in a state of "we'll have to see based on player feedback." Well if the company wants to pick up the UO community and keep it on board they need to start making decisions. We all know that the people who want to play single player CAN play single player. What we don't know is what the people who have no interest in EVER completing the story will do all day.

I have always played a crafter first and everything else second. I'm never going to run through the story because I don't care about it. What I do care about is the online interaction, world PVP, the ability to hang out with my guild mates (all 200+ of them, at once), and the challenges, experiences, and fun I'll have with other players. Only an MMO can deliver the online experience that UO has. I'm not convinced that the OPO mode will ever come close to the UO experience.

Lastly what's the sticking point without player interactivity? People stayed in UO because they made friends in UO. No one stuck around because they played solo.

 

I agree with Andrew, although I am interested as well in the story based gameplay.

We need OPO to be a true MMO experience. This doesn't remove anything for people who wanted to play the filtered modes.

 

+1 for true MMO. Make the stretch goal 2 million for a true Ultima Online 2. Hell I bet if you added up all the popular Player run shards yearly donations they'd come pretty close to that number.Thats for a outdated decade old game run by amateurs.

 

I was wondering how they would display thousands of players in map view and make them distinguishable from each other...

 

Here's to more single player, story-driven content, less time and money spent on "guild halls".

 

Guys, the single player part of the game is very well taken care of you can see it in their posts and actions and hear it in their videos. I am VERY HAPPY about that! You can't imagine how eagerly I was awaiting a true new SP Ultima.

BUT the UO fans want their dream game too, why not let them have it?

I am a fan of both equaly. And this should be after all the ULTIMATE RPG right?

@Lord_Darkmoon: I think in the map view you don't need to display any other player.

 

RG said that you would see other players entering scenarios so that you can join them there - or not, if you don't want to. For example other players could enter a scenario in which a town is besieged. They could lift the siege without you helping them. Or you could join and help them. So somehow you would have to see where the other players are and what they are doing.

 

The map view is very abstract anyway. Maybe a simple number or symbol in areas where people are would be a solution.

 

@banalitybane, That post was awesome, thank you. That is a pretty good example of what I enjoy the most about games, running you RPers down. Can't blame me directly though, cos if it was me I would have cut your head off and set it next to your body.

 

Two thoughts:

1) For all those who want the MMO, how willing are you to pay for the additional support required to keep it running? Do you think there would be enough players to make it viable?

2) Could there be a development arc that starts with a more limited multiplayer game and then develops another release for an MMO later? Remember UO was so successful because of the single player experience that generated the interest at first. Same with WoW. There has to be time to set up a whole new world. This is NOT Ultima - it can't be. Maybe a limited multiplayer will give things time to gel into something that could eventually be a great MMO.

I am hesitant of the ways MMO's can undermine role-playing and story. I'm not against the idea though. But there are just to many idiot griefers in this world - just proved by previous post.

 

The MMO aspects of Shroud will in no way impact people in a single player mode. They can turn it off. Why are people so worried that adding a real MMO feature will harm them game?

At this point shroud sounds like a game I'd play for about twenty hours and be done with. I'm limited to one character, I'll never play the story, I don't really enjoy PVP, and I'm not convinced that I'll ever get to hang out with my friends in Shroud of the Avatar.

@Vyrinor MMO's have fees. Adopting a free to play model for the MMO portion of the game would be a very good way to attract players to the MMO portion. Personally I'd recommend taking a close look at APB Reloaded or Star Conflict's free to play model. Both make good arguments on how to prevent a pay to win system from developing while giving you good reasons to spend money.
On your other point the Shroud is still in its kickstarter phase and very little information exists about the online play options. So far it just sounds like a standard co-op multiplayer game with some bizarre housing system tacked on. I say bizarre because it makes little sense to own a house at this point. People will complete the story nearly instantly so what happens after that? The devs have been woefully silent on that.

 

I think this is the problem a lot of players see. Single player games are fun for about 1 week and then you move to the next thing. The one thing single player games do better however is their story. Every time I play one though I wish I could take the character I spent so long to progress and continue playing in the world, and they can do that with this game if they make it more like a MMO.

 

In the interview I saw they said there would be 4 modes.

Single player offline - you typical Ultima on the PC

Single player Online - You would be online but it would be just you, no one would see you and you wouldn't see anyone else.

Friends Online - You would only be visible to your friends

MMO - Multiplayer online, you are visible to everyone else

Note: you can transfer your online character to the offline mode but you CANNOT tranfer your offline character to an online mode.

 

Hi There,
What they are trying to achieve is: More Realism.
Imagine you in a true situation, you will get to know what is around only and not what is happening somewhere else by seeing it from above, but by being notified that something is going on there.

When they let you only know about few people, friends, relatives, enemies, etc. It is because it is more realistic to know about it more than knowing all that is going on around (which sometimes would be truly out of sight because psychically you would not see it or because you have no previous knowledge of this or that thing or you would not be interested) Now replace the you word to PC (player character, your toon) word.

On the world map, you should truly not know what is happening since it is a really large scale map, and on the first person views, you will get to see what is around and nothing more... Capture sounds of what is audible by range, see what is on your line of sight and eventually have some unexpected encounters... Etc. This is still to be fine tuned i believe.

I believe they are trying to find a way to simulate it, somehow, increase the realism, which would be a breakthrough at RPG games. That is what we want always from a computer based RPG game simulation, more realism, isn't that?

It will be a delightful surprise, we will see, as normally is when it comes from RG @ this entertainment gaming business. Not that i am a fan boy... Far from that, but Lord British has a history which shows us that clearly... hasn't he?

 

@Death-Knell: This is not completely accurate. The different modes are listed here:
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/portalarium/shroud-of-the-avatar-forsaken-virtues-0/posts/429763

What you call MMO mode is called OPO:
"Open Play Online (OPO)
In OPO players will see everyone that the server thinks they should see. This will not necessarily be all people in the area but should be people you care the most about based on what we believe is their relevance to you."

 

Unfortunately, with the current direction this game is headed, it just doesn't seem plausible that it will offer the things that the major UO fans want. The fact that it is selective about who you will see, even in full OPO mode, the server is still decided who to show you, and who not to show you. This takes away all and any possibility of getting a random message from a friend who is far away from you, on the other side of the map mining and getting griefed and needs you to come over there at once to help him dispatch of the people who are griefing him...

The second thing that also makes this impossible is the dual scaled map. It really limits the areas that you can interact with other players, taking the above scenario even further away from happening.

So unless the OPO version of this game undergoes a radical overhaul, I just do not see it living up to what all the hardcore UO lovers want to see it become.

This being said, I'm sure it's still going to be a great game, I"m sure the OPO version of the game will still have lots of fun elements to it, and I'm still glad that I decided to donate to this game on Kickstarter, and I still look forward to playing it.

But without the ability to interact with more than 100 other players, and without a single scale map that has LARGE areas of terrain for me to find random mining spots, or to have housing anywhere on the map that isn't inside of a city, I can't really see myself getting involved enough to purchase a house, or really play this game for years to come. It almost reminds me of a Diablo type of online play with a little bit more persistence to it.

Now also, don't get me wrong, I am not ungrateful for this gift that RG is bringing to us, and I would NEVER ask him to abandon his vision and make something totally different just because I miss UO... But I would love to have a new MMO that played like UO did more than anything else, and I would HAPPILY pay a monthly fee to have that experience again.

 

I am ok with the dual scale map. You know that you can enter EVERY hex right? not just the ones with towns and dungeons.

Also, what I am reading on the stratics UO forums has me kinda disapointed in a part of the UO fanbase, they don't allow this game to grow, how could they apprechiate SOTA? Anyway.. not the point here.

 

Corv, you know what posting out of context is? Here's the rest, not just the cherry picked part.

For the most part, OPO will feel like an MMO. Lots of social interaction options with friends and other players. We are trying to distinguish ourselves from traditional MMOs only in that, unlike a normal MMO players are frequently connected directly to each other instead of all data flowing through our servers. We believe this will provide numerous advantages to both players and our service, but does differ from a traditional MMO in that the upper limit of players simultaneously on one map may be restricted.

No, its not EXACTLY like an MMO, but close enough