R11 is great but SotA is still lacking something...

Yes it should be judged based on the final product however now is the time for criticism. And it seems the single player content will reflect the online content so a direct comparison to a game series made solely as single player is still a stretch

 

For sooth, these are truly worrisome times. Alas me thinks me shouldst cast a tranquility spell...

 

So true. I've completely given up on chopping trees. I'm red/green colourblind and have no idea which trees you can harvest and which not.

I too hope there's more immersion comming in the future.
Player housing is a nice feature and the idea of player owned towns is quite fascinating, but I never played any mmorg and it doesn't appeal to me. I pledged mainly in hope for an Ultima-like game.
At my job I work a lot with people and find it very relaxing to play an single-player rpg in the evening. The ability to choose single-, friends-, or mmo-like playstyle according to your will is really great! I have high hopes for SotA!

 

I really don't understand the role of NPCs in the game if the economy is player-driven. Then NPCs are just "extras" standing around and waiting to say their sentence which will give you a hint on your quest?
I really thought that they would contribute to the economy due to the schedules that were mentioned, that NPCs would really go to work and provide for ressources and items etc.

 

We have barely started with fleshing out the world. That will take time.

 

It's to help promote a large mmorpg fan base and giving some meaning to what people craft, such as food. I understand this and i can see how it can give crafting previously useless items some worth. Someone also said something about preserving longevity of the game through the mmorpg aspect of it...I have a different view of game longevity. There is a reason why i remember details from the original ultima games, moreso than most games i have played through the years (I couldnt tell you a thing about UO and WoW aside from then being monotonous experiences for me). It's because the world was designed well enough to have longevity through memorable content...from the small home in the woods you came from, to the gypsy, music, towns, companions and all the small touches in between. Another way games can obtain longevity is through the constant addition of content, which in many instances strays the game from its original path and leads to a long lived shell of what the game once was. Let's hope SotA can avoid this.

 

I agree with most of what you said but the part I colored red really hit it home. That is exactly what we need more of. Good post.

 

I think the problem with criticism of the criticism, as it were, is that it just applies the claim that things are unfinished too widely; there are a number of things I agree the original poster has a legitimate reason to be concerned with, because it's hard to see how, with the actual game framework as it's being built, will allow to be changed in any meaningful way.

To explain more clearly;

Firstly, the problem of zones being just the backdrop for monsters to appear upon; there being no bear caves and such. I agree the zones don't feel too special at the moment, but it's easy to identify why; they're just too small physically. And when you understand that, it begs the question as to where those bear caves are going to go? Unless the game can actually support much, much larger maps, and the world builders have time to make them, it's hard to see how this can change. I don't feel like I'm adventuring in most of the zones, I'm just there trying to work out where the actual edges are so I don't accidentally leave them. The few maps that have felt large have done so by creating small mazes inside so you become disorientated.

Likewise the sense of NPCs not having any character; I really wanted the NPCs to be crowd sourced, and some will be... but we're tripped up here by the rewards scheme; design your own NPC is a (very) high tier reward, so they can't now open this up without devaluing that pledge. So too with housing, there's vastly more effort expended on it in order to bring in funding, but there's no way to make sure towns are "design-zoned" without devaluing the worth of the pledges for those; people will want the right to place where and how they like.

It's true that we're still witnessing the building of basic mechanics at this point; and much of the character is in the roleplay and personal communities that we the players are creating rather than will be found in game... but that won't exist in Single Player by definition. However, you also can't define the main plot without spoiling it here in Alpha for everyone who is backing, and thus witnessing player burn out. They have to, from a financial standpoint, string us out right up until launch date. That sounds terrible, but it's sadly a practical reality.

It's thus a heck of an experiment in game design. I'm not convinced it'll all work out yet either; I'd really like a ship or a lighthouse to live in for instance, but that entire part of the game is going to be walled off unless we can raise 1/10th of the entire funding again for that specific feature set. Otherwise you're going to have to dip into the grey market and hope someone with a thousand dollar pledge doesn't want that part of it and sells it on. Which already feels uncomfortable, and the game isn't out of alpha yet!

So yes, I hope people do keep raising worries; even with the Dev Team's brilliant talent there's no guarantee Shroud will succeed. I hope it does. But we need to help with our thoughts because we're going to be the end users most sympathetic; and if we aren't convinced, I'm not sure the gaming market will be either.

 

I agree 100%....

It's the little things, and until the developers understand and accept and start to actually push for these little things my hope fades every day....

I'm not going to beg, or berate or harass, I give them props for all the hard work they've done so far, which is beyond what many games have done, there are a lot of innovative thing in this game such as house decorating, I've never seen rotatable on top of objects on top of other objects before, great stuff.

Here is 1 thing that stands as an example to me, whether they care about the little details of the game;

Breakable Crates & Barrels [Poll] [UNOFFICIAL]

The overall response to the above thread was positive to make Crates & Barrels not being breakable but being openable like all previous Ultimas, not including UIX, UIX was quickly thrown together, I'm talking about Ultima VII, Ultima VIII, Even UO, where all containers were searchable, the search, the hunt, the questing, involving openØhen every barrel & crate is simply smashable it feels like a cheap 3d Donkey Kong game, the exact opposite feeling of an Ultima. Last time I played an Ultima I didn't think of Donkey Kong, and last time I played Donkey Kong I didn't think of Ultima, but if they keep the crates & barrels in the smashable format, I will permanently make the connection between SOTA & Donkey Kong.

One poster suggested making crates, barrels, containers Optionally smashable, I would say yes 100% to that, we don't want to waste the smashable graphics, so sure, if you swing a weapon at one why not let it smash, but even Elder Scrolls is a million times closer to Ultima VII than SOTA if kept as is.

The response I got was in a fundraising chat I believe, I took a screen shot, the response was basically they don't plan on making any changes in regards to crates or barrels, which is a very disappointing response, it's probably something they'd consider to be unimportant but they'd be wrong, as it happens to be a very important tiny detail in the grand scheme of the game's overall feel, if they are going for a Donkey Kong online feel, they succeed, if they're going for a detailed Ultima/Elder Scrolls type realistic feel they fail when it comes to containers, the ability to use them, search them and see them as being realistic and making a map look and feel realistic, it's as simple as that.

 

Second life, circa 2003, but I get your point.

Cheers.

 

Lord_Darkmoon et. al.

Let's put this in it's proper perspective. Sota is a huge undertaking. So was Ultima VII with it's tech back in the day. But the Sota world I suppose will have much more going on when done. So
it will take longer for all the systems to be fleshed out and tested. Honestly, Ultima VII probably wasn't much to talk about when it was pre-alpha either.

Iv'e seen improvements in the game through each iteration. But I agree the conversation system is still primitive and with the use of what appears to be key words in the text I cringe and think
back to the early Ultima IV conversation system. In time I hope this will be improved.

Also, pre-alpha means the systems are still being thought out. We are not even in alpha yet! Which is the proof of concept stage. So have fun and wait. I'm sure it will happen. I'm a backer of this game
and am eagerly awaiting what is in store and what they will surprise us with next!

 

If I can't open/search a container AND THEN break it then my immersion is destroyed. TIME FOR A NEW POLL

 

Played second life for 1 week, it was boring, it's literally a chat room game, it's only existence is to be a glorified chat room. So I never owned a plot of land in that game to be able to see that, but nice to know. I did find out the rates for plots in that game though, they were insanely high, I logged in when I heard about a re-creation of the town square in Back to the Future II, only to see it wasn't there, probably because the person that made it couldn't afford to keep it up forever, the fees associated with plots of land on that game are through the roof, I'm surprised anyone can afford the prices. But one thing I'd say about housing in online games...

There are many tiers of improvement when it comes to housing in online games, here are the tiers I can think of at the time being;

* Instanced Housing; only you can see it, or only you & invited guests.

* A cross between Instanced and Non-Instanced; a house appears to be non-instanced, but is in fact copied many times in the many different instances, this is what I believe will exist in SOTA. Players can almost in real-time see your decorating, but they won't see you, because you're in a different instance than them.

* Non-Instanced Housing; only 1 world and 1 house and everyone can see it.

* Non-Customizable.

* Semi-Customizable; minimal decorative options.

* Customizable; a good amount of decorative options, I believe this will exist in SOTA.

* Fully-Customizable; You can design/build your house from scratch.

* Plot Terraforming; This would be the most improved option I've ever seen when it comes to house designing. I'm sure there are degrees of this as well, but a good example of a plot of land being fully landscapable and fully terraformable would be Everquest Next's Landmark beta, and some say Life is Feudal, but I don't know how deep you can dig in Life is Feudal, I do know in Landmark you can dig very deep, very very deep, as deep as the world goes as far as I know, and make an elaborate custom dug dungeon if wanted, a very rare feature for a game but clearly an improvement on simply decorating a house and even simply building a house.

I understand it would be 'impossible' to add such amazing features to a game today, but the fact is it's not impossible and is very possible, all it takes is someone with the vision to accomplish it, the vision and the backers of course, hopefully such a game will exist one day.

 

There is absolutely nothing wrong with bringing these points up. If you bring them up early they have a chance to fix them. Numerous people have brought up threads on PVP etc to get noticed. I see nothing different being done here.

 

I am not expecting to see every feature that is important for the SP Part in the game right now. But I think that it is time to hear about them. What are the plans for these features? How will the SP part look and play? They could tell us what we can expect in this regard.

 

When you really think about it... the dev's don't change much of anything as suggested by us here on the forums. I get the impression they change things they were going to change anyway.

I'm really left with the impression we are not 'that' involved. I mean, we have dev's literally posting about how they avoid the forums.

We have made LOTS of VERY VALUABLE suggestions that have been completely ignored since R1.

After 11 releases I have worked out positive feedback is nice, in small doses, as a pep-up. To say "nice job guys". But the dev's get that by the truckload. Wheras more valuable, meaningful feedback that can actually carve and improve the game is just... met with complete silence.