R5 Game Interaction & Playability Feedback

Well, he's got a point though... after 5 public test releases the general core of the game is beginning to take shape and it becomes clear that this probably isn't going to be the successor to the Ultima games it was thought to be... your 'super important things' may be relevant for an MMO / UO type of game but are quite insignificant for the old school single player crowd. The entire game world and mechanics are clearly built around a multiplayer environment with all its specific needs and structural requirements. Turning this into a working traditional offline RPG which replicates the playability, depth and epic proportions of any of the later Ultima games (sans U9) would require a complete redesign of both world and prinicipal game mechanics. And there I have my doubts.
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I have no idea at all what you mean. The only thing distinctly "not Ultima" I've seen or felt so far has been breaking barrels and crates, where I'd rather see them opened instead of broken. As for how the game will play in terms of depth, scaling, or role playing, the systems that are critical to those experiences aren't yet in place. None of us can say one way or the other how great or epic the game will be when the story is put in place and the rest of the map / scenes are opened up to us. We also haven't seen companions yet, though we have been told that companion behavior won't be fully developed for Episode 1 anyway.

This is R5 of the pre-alpha construction of the game. Since the game isn't done yet, judgments have to be made with temperance, realizing that we're effectively reviewing a product without all its pieces. I get that the temptation to do so is there because we've already paid for the game, in a sense, but this isn't akin to preorder early access. What we're getting here is a series of sneak peaks into the game's development, and that can sometimes be easy to forget. The game is still in development.

 

Please realize this: unless you've been specifically involved with developing a game yourself, you have NEVER seen a game at this stage of development before. I don't care what beta you got a key to or what press event you snuck into. If you'd seen The Witcher, Skyrim, or Starcraft 2 at the same stage of development, you'd be saying "omg this sux the sky is falling" too.

The openness of Portalarium's development process is unprecedented.

Compare this project with Wasteland 2, or Pillars of Eternity, or the new Torment, or Star Citizen; or even compare it to Kickstarter-funded games that have shipped, like Shadowrun. None of those project provided *anywhere near* the level of early access you're getting to Shroud of the Avatar. Brian Fargo and Chris Avellone are playing their cards much closer to the chest than Richard Garriott is. It's stunning to see the way they free-wheel brainstorm with the world watching. Chris Roberts is never going to do anything close to that.

Portalarium is taking a lot of hits because of this. But hopefully, in the long run, more developers will be more comfortable doing this -- and as more do it, gamers will become *educated* about the various stages of process, and be able to provide more useful feedback appropriate for those various stages.

LB has kicked in some his own cash on this, so the development budget is likely much more than $4 million. But for a moment, suppose it's $4 million. This is a rare opportunity to see how the process works on a project this big. Have an open mind and see what you can learned. You have NEVER had this opportunity before. Hope that it goes well, so you may have the opportunity again.

 

Don't panic.

We, the backers, definately want to hear criticism, but we want to hear what you experienced and what you would have preferred it to be

instead of just ranting on the game, talking about quitting and getting all depressive, that's not fun for anyone reading your comment.

I think with this level of input into the game, we can really mold it the way we want. There will be limitations, sure.

I hear a ton of great suggestions on these forums, I hope some of them make it into the game.

Best ones I heard today:


multi-afk gestures like camping, singing, working, sleeping, playing lute etc on /afk,
some towns with walls and gates close them at night like ultima V

Yeah, and you know, that's the downside of this development model.

But they're handling it the right way, and they are fairly responsive.

I'm sure a couple decisions they'd like back tho

 

Wasteland 2 was done the right way. Fargo made a solid RPG nd didn't try to take on more than he could handle. This game should never have been MULTIPLAYER, NEVER ! The Funds were never there.

Being this was my 1st kickstarter, I didn't quite understand how the money we pledged would be used. From my understanding of the term Kickstarter (motor bike, to get the engine started), I believed the purpose of a KS was to gauge interest and get some bonus funds for development.

Call me naive, but I thought that our pledges would be added to a greater amount that Portalarium would have set aside. So we add 4 mil and Portalarium 10 mil. Now, i'm not sure how much RG or Portalarium has vested, but it appears to me this game is being made mostly on what we pledged. If I would have known that, I would never had backed this project, but like I said, this is my first time involved in a Kickstarter project.

Soon after I backed Wasteland 2 and Star Citizen (after their Kickstarters had ended) but felt much more confident in what I saw in those 2 games then later on in SotA.

For the record, i'm happy with Wasteland 2 and Star Citizen, but I will never kickstart another game ever. Brian Fargo is my favorite game developer and I had more confidence in his project than even Star Citizen. I can tell you the beta for W2 is outstanding.

Don't talk to me about openness of development. From R1 to R5 I've hardly seen much improvement (honestly). The overhead map scandal is unbelievable. I haven't posted on these forums for over 3 weeks because i've lost interest in the game but your post (and under the influence of a bottle of wine / vodka) has loosened my lips.

 

G Din, Ok, we won't talk to you about it Did you know that there are bars here in Thailand that serve nothing but Vodka I like it!

Star Citizen has barely gotten any ships into the air yet and has a mega pile of $... SotA has people running all over it during it's testing and I'm very surprised it can keep their office paid for and I haven't seen Rustic Dragon driving around in a Ferrari yet so maybe he should have a job interview with the SC Gang Dang I hope not

Playability vs ability to play... I think Portalarium has SC beat... and SotA's plowing ahead with it's "testing, questioning, answering and suggesting from it's players"...
I'm remain very impressed with SotA's ability and I am also an SC backer, yet knowing that SC is a long time further to wait on any public sales release, while SotA's making their deadline for it's public release!... on allot LE$$
Bang for Your Gaming Buck = SotA
~Time Lord~

 

Not Yet.

 

I think you should really play another games or read a book or anything that interest you and wait the final release of SotA, and only then come back and judge if you like what you see.

 

You should never kickstart any game you aren't comfortable with not succeeding. You kickstarted 3 games and had this impressive little tirade about them. Never invest more then you are comfortable with losing until you are sure. This comes back to actually doing some research, it's on you to make sure you put your money where you feel the most comfortable with it.

There has been some success on selling peoples accounts in the forums, I'm sure that is an option for you if you feel like you no longer want to be involved.

 

Making a game a multiplayer online game is a pretty big leap from a offline rpg like the old days. Yet UO was so good.
I do not know why this game cant be as good as UO. They seem to have started with a engine so small to begin with.
With this game trying so hard to strattle both sides it will be a wonder if it does either decently.

 

You are misunderstanding me. This has nothing to do with my own personal finances or money I have vested in the game. Don't lecture me that line about never invest more then you are comfortable with losing crap or go sell your account blah blah blah. Risk of losing money on a game it not my issue. Even if I pledged $25, I would still want a quality product. I'm still on the fence about kickstarter being good for gaming or do we just need EA or some other big corporation to just do a better job.

This about SotA having the necessary funds to make this game properly and taking on more then they can handle (like how the overhead map has been changed do to lack of resources).

I just got lucky with Wasteland2 and Star Citizen because the funds they raised allowed them to make a quality product within there overall concepts. Plus, I didn't kickstart those 2, I backed them much later in development so , yes, it was easier to make the decision to back those.

I also assumed in those games, Fargo and CR had plans to put in added resources (cash etc) from their studios to go along with their kickstarters. That, I don't know but I assumed.

 

If you're having fun it's a bug!
I've done a few alpha tests and it's always been horrible, but I wanted to help out the dev team by testing even when the gaming experience isn't fun at that stage. Seeing that I've somewhat enjoyed testing SoTA at this point is encouraging...
Beta tests however, have often been fun for me.

 

It's no question to me wether kickstarter is good for the industry, I know it is. I have backed a ton of games that would not have been made. Wasteland 2 and Star Citizen would not have been made. And I have many more that are being developed as well.

How do you make a big studio takea chance on a niche game? They won't. Unless they think they can make a lot of money. You want the triple A games? yes the EA's and others will provide those. But if you want those niche games, ones that may have limited market appeal kickstarter is a dream.

I think I have backed somewhere around 30 games and they all have come through so far.

The one disadvantage for some of these games is that we see them so early in their lives that it becomes easy to become disenchanted.

 

I have the opposite view of the R1 to R5 game progression. By sheer coincidence & bad luck I missed R2-R4 so jumping straight into R5 gave me a good perspective on fast the game development is progressing. Note that this is my 3rd crowdfunded game, I came into SOTA after the wild ride that was Star Citizen and had more realistic expectations of what a pre-alpha or alpha would be like (note that SC's alpha Dog Fighting Module hasn't even come out, all we have right now is the Hangar module). Oddly enough, my second KS game was Dreamfall Chapters - the 3rd installment of the classic Longest Journey series.

The Longest Journey universe has you shuttling back & forth the high tech, Blade Runneresque world of Stark & the magical world of Arcadia in a story & plot full of twists & surprises. For me, Star Citizen = Stark & SOTA = Arcadia and in my mind this is why these games are such a good fit for me. Incidentally, here is the wiki for TLJ - which is what we fans call it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Longest_Journey

This is why the SOTA /SC crossbow is such a kick for me , it's like experiencing the parallel-universe feeling I so much enjoyed in TLJ. Anyway, back to R5.

So far , I've been able to :

1. Craft leather & iron equipment and armor, forge a spear & a warhammer
2. Equip myself with offensive & defensive magical spells as well as offensive/defensive moves
3. Go on a quest to hunt down the Red Sash bandits & experienced getting lost for a few hours in bear/spider valley before finding their lair.
4. Swam rivers , jumped to the top of huge boulders ( raining fireballs on panicked enemies is soooo satifying)
5. Talked to NPCs to wheedle out information ( this part needs much work still, it's hit or miss though the quest givers and quest hinters are kind enough to highlight the keywords you should ask about)
6. Experienced sunrise & nightfall and I must say - the shattered moon filling the nightsky is unique and just plain awesome.
7. just walked, ok mostly ran around to explore cities , forests and towns

In R1 it was just mostly #5 (and the conversation was very bare) and #7 ( not much to explore) so I can safely say SOTA has made excellent progress so far. It still remains to be seen whether that random card combat system thing will work well but I"m willing to test it and give my frank feedback. IMHO my money has been well spent though I"m afraid after all that crafting I've realized that I really need the Scissors of Prosperity. After I replayed the old Ultima games to refresh my memory I should have enough background (again) to tell whether SOTA has kept the spirit of that game or not - but I certainly will be here come beta to see whether RG's team has been able to bring all the game components together in the way that they promised.

 

Many of the criticisms are valid. Many are not. We know that PvP will be consensual. We know that there will be an overland map and instances. It is very likely that the combat system as described will make it to release. We know how conversations work, how housing works, how questing will work. If these things don't suit a player then their criticism is valid and SotA is probably not the game for them.

Expectations for this game were many and varied, from a UO PvP clone to the Next Big Thing in RPG. Not everyone has combed through each and every Dev comment and video. Misunderstanding and misinformation are the result. All of this is to be expected. As more is learned about the basic structure of the game many will become disappointed. This too is to be expected.

On the other hand, judging the game based on details, playability or stability is like judging a stew by tasting a few raw vegetables - you have no way of knowing how the pieces will fit together into a fully developed product.

For those that are dissatisfied with the direction of the game, especially if you've donated money, you have my sympathies and I hope you can find a game that suits you. For those that are judging the pre-alpha state as if it is a fully developed game then you would probably be better off coming back after release.

 

Even in this early stage I can see it's an MMO at its core with a feature set aimed at the typical MMO player crowd. That's fine, I played UO for quite a while too (yes, even been in both pre-alphas long time ago) - but it's not exactly what was initially promised and what encouraged me and others to back this project with some money... and yes, UO was of course very distinctly 'not Ultima'.

 

Yea, I don't see much to distinguish this game from others. I see more and more of the "typical" aspects you find in other MMO's.

Ultima feeling? Not feeling it to be honest.

 

I get a lot of the feel of the ultima games just by the ambience and art direction so far...obviously without story or completed areas it is limited in how they can do that.

What exactly is it missing in the ultima feeling other then what I mentioned?

 

To be fair, alot is missing. decently scripted NPCs (even Lazarus, a fan project, blows the current stuff out of the water), interactivity, interesting monsters to fight, all missing so far.

In this release, the first npc you discover in towns, the town crier, doesn't even respond properly to talking.

However it is alpha. I see we're back to judging the game as if no improvements will ever be made.

If this was launch day I'd agree. But it's not.

 

I think the story will help. The town ambience seems all over the place with the varying architectures of the housing. Not much variation in theme between the different towns. Of course, that can be improved upon, but just throwing ankhs all over the place doesn't just turn it into Ultima.

The overhead map isn't as appealing as it was in the series as well.

The overall setting, i assume, will be approved upon as we move into beta etc. Right now it just seems generic to me.