Poll: Which one do you want more.

It only seems lengthy because the whole process has been out in the open. In a traditional development environment, none of us would have seen anything until sometime around now. Further, would likely would have even Known of the game being developed at all until recently. Most titles are well and truly underway before even their existence is known outside the walls of the studio doing the development.

 

Exactly. That's what I was trying to figure out how to say but couldn't find the words - is that it is and has been all in the open, open for people to play and experience. And to be fair, that openness is necessary to develop the game. It just gets a little tiresome to grind the same stuff with little to no actual story to enjoy in the process. One of the larger "promises" of the game was the story. I would really like to see more of that in game. I think that they will put it in game, just after some more hardware tweaking.

Truly hoping LB doesn't let us down on this one. He has a history of making fantastic games, and I am hoping that he will also deliver on this one too - and in a big way.

 

Hard to choose and I have been trying both when available except offline my character died and is unable to be rez'd,

 

i want a direct neural link at all times, beyond that which can be attained by VR..

 

Hell, they reference Richard Garriott in Ready Player One; bring on my Oasis system already

 

honestly, i hope AR beats out VR...

 

Definitely online! Offline this game will be pretty boring, I have to say, because it's in nature very grindy, has subpar story presentation and has little lasting value because, as we've discussed in Ultima VII thread, most of all the game features and elements feel quite disconnected from each other, while in Ultima VII things were created to represent the world you adventure in, in SOTA things are merely there, to be as additional game play elements and features. So the offline version will feel pretty flat and boring because of that disconnect.

 

I'm someone who has zero interest in playing SotA online at all. I rarely come here - there seems little point, as most of the threads are multiplayer/online centric, there is no offline content available yet (afaik,) and I want to wait to experience the finished version anyway. I just happen to have stumbled upon this thread in my latest visit. It's not a stretch to imagine that there are many more people like me (who bought into the game on the basis of the single player ultimas, not UO) who don't visit much or at all. I'm actually quite surprised that there is any offline vote at all given the current nature of this forum.

 

As I have said

 

I fear that you are right...

 

Ok, so you're obviously disappointed with SotA's current "content" and "subpar story presentation".

Just wondering if you any redeeming qualities as yet?

 

I'm not disappointed - as I said, I want to experience the 'finished' version and don't want to spoil that by playing early, so I haven't seen anything yet to be disappointed by.

I am concerned, the devs reassurances not withstanding, that the offline experience won't be what I look for in an Ultima game. At this stage, from what I'm hearing, with so little development time left before the game is considered released, if not finished, I can't see them creating something with that level of immersion. 'Wait and see' seems to be the mantra in response to this, and that's fair enough to a degree, but they're only just now starting to deal with offline/SP stuff? Development takes time. It takes more than a few months to create a decent RPG, as anyone who's followed Pillars of Eternity or Wastelands 2 can attest. The offline SP experience has to be more than a multiplayer game with a story tacked on top to be able to scratch the Ultima itch that I have - that might make it technically a SP offline RPG, but it just can't do it like that for it to be a proper SP Ultima experience. The fact is that single player, especially offline, must necessarily have different focuses and systems than multiplayer.

I realise that the SP/offline people have been saying this for some time, and it's probably like a broken record to the multiplayer folks, but if so many of us are thinking this, surely it means that there is some legitimacy to that concern.

I want to add that I don't begrudge the UO folks getting a decent multiplayer game, and I hope the experience for them is what they want of UO2. I also won't write off SotA yet as a SP RPG. Maybe, just maybe, Port will surprise me and make me eat these words. And I would be the happiest person in the world to have to do so.

 

That is perfectly true and I really would like some comments from the devs about this. BTW - no answers are also answers

 

I'm sure @Lum will be pleased to hear your confidence in his abilities.