Release 51 Instructions

Richard Garriott,

I do not believe anyone here (or anywhere else for that matter) is expecting the game to fulfill each and everyone's ideals (including their own) as well as succeeding your previous works on every metric. That is a ridiculous notion to think to that extreme or to assume that's what we mean when we point out issues with the game.

While the dev team may have worked very hard to deliver a game, I think it's very debatable as to what constitutes a "clear outline". It is a demonstrable fact that a lot of heated debates on these forums and other avenues all stem from miscommunication (something that @DarkStarr seem to interject often to state that some members are spreading misinformation ~ there is truth in every comment and if there's someone who spreading misinformation, it's usually because they were misinformed in the first place). Do you not remember the many arguments back in 2013-2014 where people were expecting another Ultima Online? 4 years later, we've got many arguments where people were expecting a single-player game! So, I respectfully ask, by who's standards was this outline clearly communicated?

Can a game exist and be neither Ultima Online or Ultima 4/7? Of course! We're using these games as reference points because that's how you (yes you) pitched the game to us. The problem is that, on SotA's very own merits (as someone who barely played any of the Ultima games ~ although I dabbled in Ultima 4 a bit ~ and is looking for a more sophisticated role-playing game), it's not very clear what it's supposed to be. You mention delivering a playable offline and online experience and that, unfortunately, sounds very bullet-point-y to me which suggests that you're somewhat missing the point. You might very well understand the situation but that's not reflected by what I'm reading.

Speaking of bullet points, @DarkStarr 's comment:

... essentially puts NPC conversations, their names and (possibly) their schedules in the same bucket as "story". It's "story" the same way someone could confuse exposition for dialogue.

Mr. Garriott,

You suggest that we restart and try the story one more time to see the refinements ourselves but, last time I checked, your team has only given us access to a single "story wipe" per character. Many of us are indeed waiting for when the game "goes live" (?) but, to be perfectly honest, I'm at a point where (since the last 4 years) I haven't seen anything in game that hinted that anything is going to be improving when it comes to the game's story and execution. Sure, quest triggers might get resolved and bug-fixed but a lot of the issues I've had since the very beginning was how the dialogue for quest NPCs were written... so I'm not really expecting it to improve.

When you make sparkly waving hands and markers on the overworld map, I can’t help but feel as if your team simply gave up on delivering dialogue that properly conveys information to the players (read the tooltip on the top-left corner). I believe I’m not the only one who thinks so. Your team either doesn't know how to solve an issue (and just leaves the issue hanging), gave up on it entirely or your team is schizophrenic in design philosophies as the new generation of gamers will most likely not be interested in what the game has to offer (heavy instancing, lots of reading, a pseudo-tab-targeting combat, etc) but your team is also doing things that goes against what the older generations was hoping to get (with quest markers, focus on grinding and less on role-play, etc).

As much as I've argued with @Lord_Darkmoon on various topics, I believe that's the kind of thing (in part) that he's talking about.

You could shrug it all off as subjective rambling but I implore you to not dismiss our concerns. We may not be the player-base that you're looking for (since @DarkStarr passive-aggressively told @Lord_Darkmoon to essentially quit) but we're still the ones who were interested in the first place. We aren't saying these things because we like to say mean things; we're saying these things because we're not convinced (based on what we're seeing in the game) that the priorities are properly set.

Yes. Shroud of the Avatar is, overall, improving on a monthly basis and R51 does seem like a relatively solid update (I'm downloading it as I type this) but that 20% you often talk about will practically need to be a defibrillator.... as that's the kind of jump-start many of us thinks the game needs if it has any chance to thrive in a hostile and competitive market. This is not speculation nor is it a threat; it is a genuine sentiment.

Respectfully,

~ a member of the Reddit community.

 

Great release.
I love the new Obsidian Potion of Guidance.

 

Lots of late nights( and very early starts) by hard working people have been worthwhile as this release is exceptional.

Great performance was one of my must haves for release, and i think you have managed it. Running around NBM and Novia Markets the lowest i got for a second was about 25fps, mostly its between 35 and 60. Brittany alleys loads in about 20 seconds but I'm running on a spinny disk and its running 25-40fps there, all perfectly fine and enjoyable. I was thinking as i was recalling home earlier that a few seconds could even be shaved off the loading times by using the time delay on the recall to preload the scene you are entering, it only seems to load that once the recall animation has ended.

Specialisation is a game changer, now we don't only have unique looking avatars with the ability to use patterns on armours and mix/match types and styles but now no 2 players have the same skill set ( they didn't before but this makes them even more unique). This will also make players more reliant on others for harder content while at the same time making themselves more valuable for a party.

Some recent changes to all items available on coto merchants apart from a few means players can get 99% of everything in the game by playing it and don't have to purchase anything is they don't wish. This is a big + imo.

Looking forward to launch and onwards where hopefully we can see some meat on areas such as agriculture( plant breeding, strength of produce), tied in with alchemy/cooking( Make skill matter in making more powerful potions along with ingredients used)....farming/animals/breeding.....Factions/player controlled resources/player dungeons?/ sea battles and lots more. Lots potential and I'm sure the team will in time tap it all.

 

Birthed from the Molten Core of Daedalus... His progeny "Deadarus" falls inexorably from the heavens... Where's that moongate back to Earth?

 

@Berek , @DarkStarr
Questions.. 1. Can we right Click "Quests " in the HUD and have an option to "Delete" or "Hide" them? 2. Can we get an Ammo/Regs counter on our HUD? 3. Can we get an "Alert", where it's a glowing effect or sound, on our Communications Window? Sometimes we get messages LATE or totally miss them because we have no idea we had new messags

 

+100

 

Sorry if this has been asked before, but did the reduction in experience decay for specializations make this release?

 

Yes. I only lost a small margin of what i used to when i died today.

 

I spotted this in the instructions today:

Then, a few lines later:

Should the second bit be edited to remove "Exceptional items must be produced individually?"

 

Is there still no Wild Boar Meat / Carcass recipe? I cant find one anywhere, and I saw in some older (R50) posts that it wouldnt be available until R51. Anyone know if/when on boar recipes?

 

Did you try just throwing a carcass on the butchery station?

 

I was out in Europe for 3 weeks and had time to play yesterday. R51 is once again an incremental improvement in the game. I finally bumped up my resolution for the first time (I play in near 4K) and it ran awesome and looked fantastic. Feeling extremely polished.

 

yeap, i have 90 butchery skill too (assuming the requirement is much lower than that), and the "Craft" button doesnt highlight with a single boar carcass on the station list.

 

???? I've been looking, can't find any boar meat recipes...

 

Nothing out there yet for Butchery or cooking that I can find. Hopefully soon.

 

@DarkStarr @Drake Aedus was asking about the name change vouchers on discord and I couldn't recall seeing the letter set in my bank either so I think these two may have slipped through the cracks.

 

there is no boar meat - if you butcher boar carcass (not learnable only teachable!) you get pork meat, and there are uses of that

 

We just fixed this! They should be in your bank and on your account

 

Thanks!