1. Here you will find official announcements and updates. These announcements are also linked in the Official SotA Discord server.
    We encourage comments from the community! To keep the announcements official, we ask that comment threads be created in the General forums for player input.

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Release 59 Instructions

Discussion in 'Announcements' started by DarkStarr, Oct 24, 2018.

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  1. Tila Tenderfoot

    Tila Tenderfoot Avatar

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    Yeah, agreed, the implementation could have used some finesse.

    And thank you guys for voicing your concerns over open mode in pots/on overworld, I had no idea in which way some people could be affected. I'm an introvert and like to be left alone most of the time, but hearing that open mode could have real life impact is humbling.
     
  2. Aurelius Silverson

    Aurelius Silverson Avatar

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    But you or I don't have to understand what others enjoy or want, I'm perfectly happy just to let people do whatever they enjoy as long as it's not affecting others adversely. I really liked the option of single player online for when I just don't want to be 'social', but still see the signs of other players like their homes and vendors. The SPO was one of the big features that attracted me to the game, and losing it is just one more step away from what I'd hoped, and was led to believe, I'd signed up to. There very much WAS a point to that mechanic, since it attracted me and several others to support making the game.
     
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  3. Gorthyn

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    I appreciate all that and fully respect and understand that point of view. I simply believe it will prove a change for the better as it will help attract and retain more players and only time will prove that to be right or wrong.
     
  4. By Tor

    By Tor Avatar

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    Anyone else unable to log into this release?

    Edit: Disregard - just logged in successfully
     
  5. Lazlo

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    As has been said many times at this point, the same thing could be accomplished without removing the option of private towns. The #1 contributor to private town instances prior to now was private adventuring. Most people prefer public towns, but don't want to switch modes every time they do something. If people had the ability to adventure privately and experience towns publicly, you'd still get all of the same benefits without having to force it on people that don't want that.
     
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  6. Duke Ezekiel Cooper

    Duke Ezekiel Cooper Avatar

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    "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." - George Santayana

    Good move guys...

    Crowfall's Gordon Walton on how Trammel impacted classic Ultima Online
    "Yes, I'm the person who is responsible for bringing you Trammel and the dilution the original UO.

    And I regret some (but not all) of the outcome. My charter as the VP of Online at Origin Systems (and Executive Producer of UO), was to grow the game. The unforgiving play environment that made UO so intense was clearly driving away between 70+% of all the new players that tried the game within 60 days. The changes we came up with to address this problem were a compromise, mostly driven by fiscal, technological and time reasons.

    The good: After the change which broke the game space into PvP and PvE worlds, the player base and income nearly doubled (we went from 125k to 245k subs). So from a fiscal responsibility standpoint it was a totally winning move.

    The bad: Without the "sheep to shear" the hard core PvP'ers were disenfranchised. They didn't like preying on each other (hard targets versus soft targets), and they became a smaller minority in the overall game. The real bad though was that the intensity and "realness" of the game for all players was diminished. This was the major unintended consequence.

    Part of the context during that time was that UO2 was under development, and the plan that was being pushed on us was to shut down UO when UO2 launched (even though it was a completely different game). In fact, my second week at Origin I was asked for a shutdown plan for the game. (My answer: if you are serious I'm quitting today, because some of the players are going to kill (IRL) the people responsible for such a decision. They really didn't understand the emotional attachment UO players had for the game). This continued to be something talked about though continuously, but less after we grew the game. Remember that EA at that time was a packaged game company and they culturally only understood launching new products, not running live ones. Our Live team needed to keep UO vibrant and growing to offset those forces, so we were continuously scrambling for how to do that. I'm proud that UO survives to this day based partially on the momentum the team (and our loyal customers) created.

    I also learned from my UO experience that it's really hard to change a brand. Inherent in the UO brand was the fact it was a gritty, hard core world of danger. We were not successful in bringing back the (literally)100's of thousands of players who had quit due to the unbridled PvP in the world (~5% of former customers came back to try the new UO, but very few of them stayed). We discovered that people didn't just quit UO, they divorced it in a very emotional way. But we did keep more of the new players that came in by a large margin, significantly more than than the PvP players we lost.

    If I had the chance to do it again, (and we had different fiscal and time constraints), we would have done something more like keeping the current worlds with the original ruleset (like we later did with the Seige Perilous shard, which was too late in my view), and make new shards with a more PvE ruleset.

    One of the benefits of experience is the mistakes you've made along the way, and the pattern matching to avoid old mistakes. Of course this means that you get to make new and even more spectacular (but different) mistakes in the present! :)

    I hope this gives you more insight into what happened the UO that you (and I) loved."
     
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  7. Earl Atogrim von Draken

    Earl Atogrim von Draken Avatar

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    I fail to see the connection. If you want to connect old school uo hardcore PvP to spo I would say that's a 'little' far fetched.
     
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  8. Duke Ezekiel Cooper

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    Then you fail to dissect and really look at what the gentleman is trying to say in the quote above, and realize what it is that port is trying to do.
    Some of you guys are pushing so hard for a "Burger King" game, to have it your own way, that your blinded to the overall effect and outcome of the decisions Port is making to enrich the platform.

    Ranting and raving about it so the trolls on Reddit have something to repost and dismantle the game with is what is killing SOTA, not Portalarium.

    Here's a new concept for everyone to consider... Let Portalarium build the game, and let's play it...
     
  9. Mishikal

    Mishikal Avatar

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    Again, the issue isn't that the idea is bad. The issue is that the implementation is flawed.
     
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  10. Earl Atogrim von Draken

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    Ah. So your point really is that they are trying to grow the game and change has always two sides and so on. I still think you picked a far fetched example.
    Non the less: I doubt spo has a big impact. I actually doubt it has one at all.
    That has nothing to do with ranting or Reddit. I am sure most of the people who advocate for spo don't even have a reddit account nor are they known for a big amount of ranting. Accept all for the greater good you say? Not going to happen, sorry.
     
  11. Duke Ezekiel Cooper

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    All I'm saying is... Quote and all is this...

    Quit bitching while this company is using it's gyroscopes to find the medium between retention and acquisition.
    Sit your ass back and enjoy the ride...

    I'm off this thread now...
     
  12. Anpu

    Anpu Avatar

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    Holy cow! There’s people talking now.... in game... :O

    Oh interesting, your alts can’t chat though...
     
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  13. Earl Atogrim von Draken

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    Hu, I am not sure who of us two is bit*hing at the moment. You see, answers like this and this attitude is what makes people actually create Reddit accounts.
     
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  14. Duke Ezekiel Cooper

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    Love you too. ;)
     
  15. Earl Atogrim von Draken

    Earl Atogrim von Draken Avatar

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    Touché.
     
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  16. nonaware

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    can not seem to find the bundles or new deeds on coto merchants... plz halp :(
     
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  17. Browncoat Jayson

    Browncoat Jayson Legend of the Hearth

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    I'm very interested in the new user experience changes, and getting rid of decay. Those should help with acquisition and retention. The other changes... well, time will tell.
     
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  18. Lained

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    No signs of these two rewards.
     
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  19. Moiseyev Trueden

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    It might be that they aren't actually in yet. They've had some recent hiccups on adding stuff in that isn't actually showing up for us in game as expected. Hope someone finds it soon though if it is in.

    ***EDIT*** With the comment above showing another good example of this.
     
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  20. Joe Zhudarak

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    Are there some restrictions to free accounts? Lot ownership...adventure level, trade and quests are by now include in the free version? What about the free steam version of sota?
    We need information in order to advertise it in facebook's mmo groups
     
    Last edited: Oct 25, 2018
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