Release 59 Instructions

Well yes it is my opinion and also it would seem Portalarium's too hence the steady raft of changes we are seeing at present.

I do absolutely agree with your wish not to have strangers wandering around your houses and I would not pretend for a moment that more traditional mmo "features" do not bring their own issues and challenges.

 

YAS!

 

Because:
A) makes new players feel like their not in an empty game that cause new QOL issues.
B) Game was never marketed as forced PVP, and since PVP is only an option few of us enjoy, why alienate an already small player base?

 

You think this is the burbs in the 50s? You should be locking your doors anyway? *crouches behind couch with shotgun*

 

A) make me care. As if going f2p wouldn't have been enough to fill this game with more players
B) alinating the playerbase (be it small or big) seems to be part of the concept

No. I just don't want to have to deal with other people on my ingame property. The downside is that they won't be able to visit the lots and see the awsome deco. Not that i deco much (but that was always the sad part for me in UO. You see an awsome decorated house and can't enter it to take a look at it. Well! Now i understand those people) but other people do and do it pretty awsome and i am rather sure a chunk of them will lo0ck their deeds down as well.

 

Stopped reading after this. If you don't care. No point in talking to you.

 

nvm

 

I choose to not sweat the small stuff.

 

looks hot.... ready to try it out ........good work .........love the game!!

 

what would help with that, is the option to IGNORE all tells and whispers…. so when you don't want to be bothered by anyone , you won't have too.

 

I think it's best to make every molehill into a mountain before it becomes an issue, cover all the bases, that way you get the most "I told you so" value if naked people with random instruments show up in everyones house.

 

There are lots of reasons that SPO was a loved feature of the game.

a) There are people who have social anxiety who play(ed) SOTA. By being able to do SPO they could party with those people whom they know well in real life. Social Anxiety doesn't disappear just because they're behind a computer screen
b) There are people who are on the autism spectrum who play(ed) SOTA. The SPO feature allowed them to have minimal social interactions but still get to participate in a way that was comfortable for them.
c) As others have also noted, when working on decorating a lot, it's obnoxious to be harassed by other players (even if it's not intentional).
d) As others have also noted, they prefer not to get spammed by the conversation and music of their neighbors
e) Sometimes a scene reset is the only way to fix bugs in the game. You can no longer do this now in forced multiplayer scenes (Oracle breakage, for example)
f) Some people like to RP. To maximize their experience, they would go into SPO as a group and thus not have to interact with non-RP players
g) Some of us simply want to have a game where they can go and play with the people we specifically want to be involved with.

I.e., your inability to understand why people would want to be in SPO doesn't negate that there are numerous valid reasons for people to play in SPO. It was a very wonderful and unique feature to SOTA. And personally, I think blaming SPO for SOTA's population woes is rather ludicrous. The game was clearly not ready for release when it was released, and that generated a lot of generally negative reviews. Even now I personally would say SOTA's finally to what I would call "late stage" BETA (It was *maybe* early stage BETA when it was "released"). It's great that there's a lot of focus now to improve the FTUE, but it's all work that should have been done before release. And the quest system is still pretty abysmal and buggy.

 

These are all good reasons.
My reason is that people are generally idiots.

 

We always had some controversy with this topic, and now its here to stay. Time will tell us if this was a good change for all.

I have my doubts with towns but for Overworld, its perfect.

 

which merchants are the bundles on? harvest for the Viking? spite, desolis, or shrekk for the obsi? or some other merchant.

I looked on qa last night but didn't find them.

 

Am not blaming SOP for the population woes, as you eloquently state there are many reasons for that. I personally believe that it hasn't helped but that it certainly isn't a core issue.

 

My worthless thoughts on the SPO issue. SOTA has suffered for long with misguided features originally promised, for example the Duke custom heads. Early Portalarium planning had many flaws which is a product of the crowd funded philosophy of promising all to get backers and delivering little. I think of it as the Bernie Sanders approach. Tell the people everything they want YOU WILL deliver. Then when the time comes to pay and everyone's pockets are empty you have to finally face reality.

Now this issue of promising all and delivering far less is only partially the fault of the Developers. We as consumers also have 50% of the responsibility and this is inherently due to the crowd funding development methodology. We have to understand projects change during development. Overall Portalarium has delivered more often than not on their promises.

The SPO promise is a related issue. When new players start, they see a barren SOTA why stick around? Certainly not for that "high quality" single player game. So to attract and keep people in game, we needed to change.

While I totally understand disappointment some will have being forced into Mutliplayer when they previously had other options. Everyone needs to ask themselves, what is good for the future sustainability of the game? If this game closes down, we get no modes of play. I do applaud Portalarium for being willing to make necessary changes and hope the results are overall positive.

We as a community need to stop thinking always about the "I" and focus more on the "WE". Portalarium needs to stop making promises they can't keep.

 

A) Portalarium did deliver on SPO. Now they're removing it.

B) As has been discussed elsewhere, there were better ways to implement "mixed mode". Prior to R59, there were 3 modes: multi, party, solo. Party & Solo were identical. The best way to have implemented this change would be to have 3 actual modes: Mixed, Multi, SPO. With the default for new players being Mixed. I think the majority of people would have been happy to be in mixed. It's the *forcing* of mixed mode with no way to opt out that's problematic. I.e., I think the overall idea is good, but the implementation is deeply flawed.

 

I still doubt that.
On the one hand, people are trying to tell me SPO players are a minority and should just stfu and deal with the change,
On the other hand another couple of people field your argument.
So what now folks?
Pick one.

 

I lol'd. Made my day.