My 2-cents on why I remain a backer of SOTA - I ain't going anywhere

I accept that I could be wrong, but here I go with my perspective.

Those of us who have been here for years before release got a view of the game most gamers never get to see - we saw SOTA being built from the ground up and we actually had a hand in shaping the game as it is now. What a grand experiment to work with a disparate bunch of people from around the world to make a game! It took years to do. So I chalk up a lot of the disappointment expressed by former supporters as a simple case of "development burn out".

The game has only been *officially* released for about three months. I have to wonder: If some of the former supporters had NOT been part of the long development process would they have as many gripes? I could be wrong, but I suspect not. I see all kinds of threads from new players who love the game. It's all new to them and they like what they see. Perhaps the open nature of how this game was developed contributed to some of the disappointment some people feel now? I don't know, I am just throwing it out there as a hypothesis.

So the game has been officially released for a very short period of time. I see many of the same problems as any game I've played during the first year of release - bugs, broken quests and the like.

I agree that there are a couple of things that were promised from Kickstarter that did not make it. My choice is to NOT focus on the 2 things I was looking forward to that didn't make it in (yeah I'm looking at you custom Duke head and Static PoT) and instead focus on the 1000's of things that were added. For me the many outweigh the few. I keep playing, I keep supporting and I keep enjoying the game.

The game has problems, yes. So did every game I've ever played when it was first released - whether it was a single player game or an online game. I know a huge gripe for some is the SP part of the game. It's there, perhaps not how they'd like to see it, but it IS there. Room for improvement? Yes from the feedback I read.

As for what LB may or may not have said 5 years ago - the man dreams big. I can't fault him for that or for any dreams he had for SOTA that were met with the harsh reality that some dreams don't make it. They hit the editing floor and are gone. For now anyway. It's agile development...who knows what may or may not be added in the future?

SOTA isn't UO, just as my kids aren't me. SOTA is the spiritual successor, the child , the new kid that has a flare all it's own. I'll stick around so I can continue to watch it grow. I know others have left or are leaving. I am hoping in a year they will come back to see how the kid has progressed. Kids change a LOT in a year.

 

+1

i have my gripes aswell, but on the other hand, i simply see no other game on the horizon, that gives me the same feeling of freedom even if it is frustratingly slow.
bannerlord to some extent if it ever gets released, but ill miss the mmo factor.

 

I think a lot of people took what Portalarium said and had built up what they thought it would be in their heads. When it didn't turn out exactly as they had pictured it, they got mad and threw tantrums all over the Internet. I've been here a long time and I have to say that SotA has largely exceeded my expectations of what it would be.

 

@Fionwyn Wyldemane
Agreed.
I knew there was a good reason for my "following" you here.... you make sense .

 

If people are truly unhappy with SOTA today, they would have run in fright after R1 was released ;-)

SOTA improvements are found in every release. Sure, hitching recently has made a come back and is beating us up (among other issues). The problems are being worked on. Port is interested in creating a VERY long term game. And they are hard at work trying to make it happen.

Rome wasn't built in a day or so I'm told

These days I look around. Some scenes I don't care much for. However there are interesting places I rather enjoy visiting. Adventure around and see what's out there.

Now, about getting boats working and some pack animals....

;-)

 

I backed the game in the beginning, I loved UO, and played it for a long time. Due to my location, I have had horrible internet for years, so I never even tried (would have been a attempt in futility to even try an online game) As an example - it took me 2 weeks to download Xcom2. Finally, as of about 3 months ago, my location (my actual home) got "real" internet. It took me cutting a lot of trees to get LOS to the tower, good LORD - I can actually watch netflix now. So far, this game is amazing (IMO) I wish the player activity were a little higher, and other things could be tweaked, but as of right now, I love it. I had no preconceived notions of what I wanted the game to do for me other than have fun. And I have not been disappointed yet.

 

Couldn't be said any better.

I look back to 3 years ago and remember people rage quitting a game barely even into development because it was buggy and incomplete and just slap myself.

 

I've been here since R20. I bought a basic account right away, after playing what was THE first trial weekend. It was three months before I started to put more money into it, because by then I could see it was more or less what I wanted, even though it lacked the cuteness I had become used to in FFXI.

 

Definitely has gotten better leaps and bounds recently. I mean it's even making me want to PVP! IN AN MMO!? I'm not going to lie, there were things that made me take my 8 month hiatus. However, since release 50, I only see things getting better each release, EXCEPT that one release where they left a major bug in Body Slam for the whole release

 

I only started playing since a few months after persistence but the amount of the progress the game has made since then has been amazing. It's not always as fast as we want, but the game really does get better with each and every release.

 

Thank you for this post @Fionwyn Wyldemane . I cannot tell you how much this means to see. As I sit here late on a Tuesday getting the R56 build ready with the team it is messages and the spirit behind them that remind me why we are doing this.

Is the game perfect? Absolutely not!!!!
Are there things I wish we could have delivered better? Totally!
Are we sorry about those things? Yes! Very sorry!
Are there a TON of things we are super proud of despite all of that? Yes!

The biggest thing is we are ABSOLUTELY committed to making things better every single month.

 

Keeping doing what you do. Improve, polish, pontificate...make it better. Every. Release.

Thanks!

 

The first several releases were really cool from a "Hey this is a limited yet promising new thing!" and of course having everyone limited to Owl's Nest, Kingsport, and Braemar. A bit later on, after several character wipes, at least for me, it became less fun and more of an annoyance having to constantly start from scratch. Then something happened a release or two after Official Release status... the storylines became fleshed out enough that a restart of my character and a move of my ingame home from Eastmarch to Celestis made the game feel like it was meant to feel.

It does remind me a lot of the early days of Ultima Online, though the issues are mostly different. Lag is not nearly as much of an issue as it was during the step-step-freeze lag of dialup UO, and PKs are simply not a Thing™ unless you want them to be. However several features and scenes are yet to be completed, but in my view that's ok. I remember when Mining in UO only gave Iron, Fishing only gave fish, and Healing was unusable in any real manner. But even with the Incompletes in SotA, there are so many little things that bring so much more to the game.

Long time fan of UO, long time fan of the Ultima series (not as long as some but still), and definitely a fan of SotA. Thanks LB, Starr, and team!

 

I believe its moving in the right direction, mabey not super fast but I can see its being steered.

 

This is a subtle hint for boats, right Me too!

 

I keep waiting for DS to say hell yea boats eps 2 bitches...

 

Why is it that people need instant gratification in all things today. It takes years for a good wine or whisky to age and become palatable and perfect.

I started gaming in the dark ages my first game was Ultima 2 on a Commodore 64 and I never looked back

In March of 2014 I bought a Kickstarter in a game called Shroud of the Avatar I played it and became tired of logging in and finding hours of game time wiped so I put it on the shelf and did not look at it for a long time. Then I picked it back up and it was still being wiped on a regular bases but I stuck with it looking for the promised "we will not wipe it again"

Since that last wipe I have played SOTA almost every day and have logged more than 4500 hours in game, but what I have found in this game is the responsiveness and ability to interreact with the DEV's and the firm backing of the community, a community that has gone over and above any other community that I have ever played with in the past. Does this game need work, yes it does, is it playable, yes it is, is it being played, not as much as it should.

There are a lot of gamers out there that want to come to a game play it through and go on to the next one, and not savior the game in it's entirety and when the game does not meet there instant gratification they beat it up and call it unfinished, a terrible game and much more.

I play this game because I love it and I love the people that I have met and will meet. "IT IS" getting better every release I just hope those that need that instant gratification find other games to play and those that want to savior the making of a great game continue to play as much as they can

I will see you in game for I am here for the long haul.

 

@Robros Reh +10

PS - you better be here for the long haul!