Navigation through New Britannia

I think they can make it for substantially less if they focus on just the core aspects and server stuff.

 

Sir Isycle, afford to do what?

I've been advocating cutting a feature, so your statement doesn't make sense.

It costs far less to scrap the current system and do as I have advocated and that's part of the reason I am advocating the change!

Also, the funding issue goes back to my previous post. The problem with funding is due to the fact that this game is currently failing to attract and retain even the die-hard fans. Just this week there was a discussion on the Ultima Dragons Facebook group and no one had anything positive to say. That's a VERY bad sign.

Most of the support garnered so far can be broken down like so:

- Ultima fans offering patronage, unconditionally (whether the game is worthy or not), based on Richard Garriot's reputation
- People who enjoy seeing the development process exposed and learning from it or participating in it (this is one thing SotA has going for it)
- People who were curious to try the game because it's new, somewhat similar to games they like to play or offers something different

If SotA fails to attract and retain more of the last group, what we'll end up with is a very mediocre game in the end because of lack of funding.

 

Take it from Chris on the why's of the dual scale:

https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/?p=3095



Quick cap:
More dynamic world, less painful travel, quicker content creation, lower machine requirements, more scaleable multiplayer epxiernces ( you can restrict hexes from 1 to 100+ players depending on what you designed the area for)

Many, Many modern games have dual scale map systems, and many of them sell well and get good reviews. I can make a list if you need it.

Here is what I take away from the system. I don't have to use some fast travel method to move around to where I need to go. They can make areas challenging to reach without being too time consuming. You leave this place, you have to fight your way through giants to get back, but it's always a fast travel system. They can make things appear on the map that you might want to investigate through visual clues, but you wont know they are there till you get close enough. No good way of doing that in other systems. Changing areas out is likely the best reason they have to keep the dual scale map. one day it's a mountain, next day it's a volcano with pvp and rare resources and fire elementals. Couple of days later it's a mountain again.


Also: I don't think i've ever played an MMO that was a seemless world. Every single one of them had a transition between zones, and the zones were radically different form the one you left.

 

Welcome to to the forums, but I would like to respectfully disagree.

The last people the devs should listen to is people with less than 10 posts on the forums !

The people who have known about and supported this game from the beginning, putting hundreds of dollars into the game and considering adding hundreds and hundreds more... yes !

We ARE important too !

Not to take anything away from you being a new player interested in the game, but I can't really imagine jumping into star citizen and telling the long time players there before my 10th post that I'm more important than them !

 

I already suggested more than once to make the overland map an option... Normal travel is from hex to hex, but if you get the map from your backpack and doubleclick it, you go to the overland map level (also means you do not have to go to the "exit" of your hex first), where you can travel more easily...

 

Please, tradyblix, if you had actually read my posts, you'd know I am not a new player.

I've known about and supported this game from day 1, pre-Kickstarter, when it was nothing more than a letter from Lord British, and I'm a Royal Founder, Citizen-level backer. That's how much I love Ultima and how much I want the spirit of the Ultima games to live on.

Hell, I was one of the people to send in $5 to make UO possible as well back in the day.

Anyway, it's very important to consider the opinions of the people who are on the outside if you have a problem with attracting an audience and funding. It's just basic logic. But you're free to your own opinion irregardless of whether it makes logical sense or not.

I meant no offense to those with 1000+ posts on this forum, but I was making a point that at this time it's more important for the developers to hear the opinions of those potential players who have passed this game up and aren't even currently interacting on the forums.

I also by no means advocate design by committee and I think the developers should have a backbone with regard to their own vision. If not, it's time to re-evaluate why you're a developer in the first place.

 

I'm sorry tamino. It's hard to read someone's posts when there are only 9 out of 1 million or whatever it is.

Don't misunderstand me. I'm sure you may be a long time backer and are interested in seeing the success of the game.

But, for whatever reason, you haven't been active in THIS community for a year and a half.

There are many people here I respect who have much more interaction than me!

To come on and the first thing you say is "Don't listen to people with 1,000 or more posts, it's more important to talk about Rabble Rousing features and Game development by Committeee..."

I'm sorry, but I just respectfully disagree with your approach in this matter. It rubs me the wrong way, that is all.

 

I think the best option would have been an open seamless world with isometric perspective for the Ultima feeling. But the devs explained why this was not doable and I am ok with it.
So the next best option is the one we have now. Areas you can explore in third person view and an overworld you can explore in a zoomed out isometric view - this allows us to have a big explorable world with an Ultima feeling as this was the way five Ultima games (six if you count Akalabeth) worked.

Travelling from hex to hex doesn't make sense in SotA as the areas would repeat themselves over and over again which would make travel a) boring over time and b) confusing and odd.

 

There's your problem. You didn't really read what I said, and you just added a bunch of noise to the forum about Skyrim for the most part. That's not the first thing I said and my first post in this thread was completely on-topic.

Also, if you're going to quote someone, please don't modify what they said.

I don't post here very often because I am a busy professional developer (of games and other cool things).

Well before this forum even became available, I had very little interest in the actual game they were proposing to build, and since then things haven't really changed much, and therefore my interest has waned even more as my hopes for a true spiritual successor to the Ultima games die down.

Regardless, I still actively monitor what's going on and keep apprised of all the developments because I will always remain a fan of Richard Garriot and company.

I remain skeptical of SotA, but I'm hoping for the best.

 

Actually something like that would not be possible with the budget we have now. Question: When the fundraising is high enough, can we have a 'world' without loading zones, and only have the over-world map for fast-travel to places we've slow traveled to at least once? That feature alone would require at least $10-20M to operate at scale and would greatly complicate our one meta-shard solution (so much so that it might mean we would have to break the game into shards).
And I am not 100% sure but I think they said somewhere that even something like having loading screens between each hex would not really be doable.

 

Exactly this I think while it may not be exactly what some were hoping given their budget the system they chose to go with it probably the best.

 

Actually in chat they said it was a nice idea that should be relatively easy to do... It really doesn't change a whole lot to the system at all! Instead of going to the map you do what normally would happen if on the map you double-click the next hex?!... Not suggesting getting rid of the zone loading (what is what they were talking about above), just move from one hex to the next without loading the map!...


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk.

 

I can't agree with this. The current map does not exhibit the feeling or style of ANY Ultima's (not the Art style the play style).

You can't explore, only walk around. The only real exploring is done strictly inside the instances.
You don't have Chat, equipment, inventory - all game systems are effectively turned off to travel. In old Ultima's the map was a complete gameplay experience not a point and click adventure.
There is not a single piece of design in the map to indicate ANY other players are even playing let alone the realtime state of the worlds affairs (some of this has been scheduled though like the World Indicators and PvP states)
No Party interface like the old Ultimas (also slated AFAIK).
No AI yet - every Ultima had good-enough AI designed in the early 80's so I find it very hard to understand why this would/is a issue.
Slow movement - no WASD! Every Ultima had this by default, it is what a lot of people would prefer to resemble the Classic dual scale style

In the end there is not really one single thing in common with any successful or fun dual scale RPG out there.

Copy/Paste map gameplay from U3/U4/U5 add multiplayer and territorial mechanic done.

Another thing I can't understand is why people would want to have a 3d overworld map because it would likely only contribute to making fundamental systems harder to code - such as AI, territories, movement, NPC pathing and PvP - all of these are IMO exponentially more important than the art style.

Right now I am all about just having a 2d map with square or octagon tiles (like we have now) and little character representations of our parties and of other encounters. Make all that run smoothly and I would be happy.

 

You should go back and read the first post in this thread. Most of those features he mentioned are being added per darkstarr's post. Here they are again:

• Zoomed out 3D version of the world
• 3D Avatar animating and walking around in the overworld
• 3D NPCs animating and moving around the overworld
• Roving encounters that you can see moving around the overworld. If you intersect with them you are pulled into a scene.
• Surprise encounters that pull you into a scene.
• Indicators on map of world state including towns under siege, PVP encounters, etc.
• Terrain Types determine movement speed
• Party members visible on overworld (both moving around and indicators of which hex they have entered)
• Obscurance of unexplored areas (i.e. fog of war or something like that)

This is what he said they are shooting for. I think it sounds great and exactly waht I was asking for.

I agree, the current overworld map isn't any fun. clicking to move a marker wherever you want and watching it slowly move across the map isn't fun and exciting. So they have agreed to change it. The art style (Although I dislike) I could live with as long as it had this added functionality. Instead they are giving us what the majority of the community asked for, and is more like the original videos shown.

 

I think what Tamilo is kind of trying to get at is the issue of emotional attachment. Emotional attachment is a real issue with games design often because the more time and money spent and invested the less those individuals are likely to want to take a real look at criticism. Both Dev's and investors are not immune to those effects, even if the only thing those people want is for their game to succeed.

In the end the final game reviewers will have their say and that will likely be a determining factor of whether or not new players will want to try out Sota.

I also agree that a lot of people are here because they are curious about Sota. Many many many games start with a large audience but quickly wither and die out after 2-3 weeks because of real, critical design flaws that make those games utterly unappealing for 'average' gamers.

 

I never wanted a 3d overworld nor 3d avatars and NPC's. It doesn't make sense to build those out before building out AI/pathing/territories and PvP/encounters as well as adventuring commands including magic/special items/chating/party interface etc..

I am not opposed to 3d things here but I see the real need to complete the other things firstly. Pushing to get the 3d artwork done is putting the carriage before the horse IMHO.

 

But if a large part of the community is angry at you, and the "others" are silent, one would have to assume they agree with the angry crowd, and therefore follow the lead of the community...

Again this is an example of where the team listens to the community and delivers what they ask for. If you don't want them to do stuff, you'll need to be vocal about NOT wanting things when the opposite site is being vocal about WANTING it! It's a bit late now to complain about the team delivering what was asked for!

Could the time have been used better? Hell yeah!
Did I mind the 2d map as shown? Not really!
Do I mind the 3d map being developed? Not per sé, but I do agree now is not the right time, as such.
(But again the community asked for it, and I should've spoken up to try and prevent it if it were sufficiently important to me!)

 

I trust the developers with their decades of experience know the best order to implement systems.

 

That's been part of the problem, from my perspective. They have been doing a lot of things in the wrong order.

This is all becoming hindsight now but I was saying this same stuff during the Kickstarter!

Another problem is their resource/staffing levels. They appear to have too many technical resources and a dearth of creative and artistic resources. It shows in the end product so far.

Development of modern games like this one requires a larger percentage of creative and artistic resources than technical. Especially in the early conceptual and proof of concept stages when trying to gain support and funding for the game. That was mistake #1 which capped the crowdfunding proceeds early on. It's a miracle they raised as much as they did with what they showed.

It used to be just the opposite, which is why old-school developers who've been out of the game for a while sometimes falter!

Project management and management resources such as producers, directors and leads also become more and more important the larger a project and a development team gets.

And unfortunately, as great as having the development process exposed and open is, it's also probably a pretty major distraction for a team of this size.

Imagine an alternate universe where SotA reached $40 million in funding instead of Star Citizen. There's absolutely no reason why this couldn't have happened from a theoretical standpoint. The difference was not only in how the planning and execution of the two campaigns transpired but also the resonance within their respective communities of the vision put forth by the creators.

It's a damn shame that SotA was not as skillfully executed as Star Citizen, as we'd all be looking forward to an awesome new entry in the Ultima series (if not by name, but as a spiritual successor) rather than bickering on a forum.

I still believe there is a slim chance for SotA to reach its true potential as a worthy spiritual successor to the Ultima series, but it's all dependent on there being someone at the helm steering the ship in the right direction!

 

And I have been saying it, with other professionals, since the KS.

The main problem is what you hit on: Old School Developers.

They are using the same Publisher/Developer model that they are used to, but haven't stepped into the Publisher role too well, nor seem to have planned for one of the largest selling points of the project: Crowd Sourcing.

It is just a clear lack of understanding the modern trend of community interaction, trying to use the more traditional means they are used to, which work fine for the majority of their crowd funding. There are some really good projects that had come before and after this one, with the same intents, that are providing a more modernized approach.

It will work out, but it certainly won't be the level that it could be, and the verdict is out on the exemplar it sets for crowd sourcing with crowd funding in a positive or negative light.