SotA Civil Rights and Lone Wolves Act of 2013

So, firstly I would like to state that I applaud everything that the Portalarium team has done here with SotA thus far. I?m quite surprised that I find myself this interested in a game which seems to wane my ability to achieve bloodlust in-game a little bit by bit month by month? As I said though, I am still very interested.

Why is that? At this point it seems like it is going to be very unique and a little bit of a nod to old-skool gamers such as myself. Backpack organisation alone for example, great stuff!

Is all of this enough to keep myself interested in this game going forward and through a long haul? I don?t know, and much of what I will say here is already a new experience to me. Typically because I am a lone wolf in 99.9% of everything I play. So is it already a sign that you, Portalarium, have started to make me, InsaneMembrane, think about actually utilizing other play styles in a game?

There is one catch to that however, and that is the simple fact that I will never join a Guild with other players. So along those lines, I would like to say that a few things really concern me about playing SotA, and these are actually things which I usually just laugh at and then move on to PK a crafter trying to make a chair.

- Civil Rights -

I am not going to name names or link posts, but there have been a few forum posts of late which have been really not very cool at all. Some of the topics include Housing, charges for new game content, differences between KickStarters/post-KS backers/non-backers, and so on and on.

Personally I do think that the classification of any person or persons into any category at all for any reason is shameful. Let alone based on the contribution in which they could afford during a KS campaign, or whatever other idiotic thing is going to pop-up in the future.

If I met a new gamer 3 years from now in SotA Part II, I am pretty sure I am not going to treat that player like trash because he hadn?t heard of the game until then. I might PK him when he is crafting a chair?.but that is a different story!

It sounds like we are going to have a bit of a segregation issue. Kickstarters, non-KS backers, and non-bakers it has started already to boil down into. This is quite a bit of a shame, and the reason is that just as I am being excited for the first time about a game like this, the community(people in this forum) are making the continued excitement difficult. I can imagine that if I feel this strife, others can also and that is only going to spread if not checked.

The following is not a threat in any way and besides I?ve already donated lol, however I couldn?t play a game where Kickstarters are worshiped as gods, and the rest of the players can eat dirt. Another example are the Dev Forums. There are some members in here which are being very quiet and the reason is they are waiting for their ?privledged? access into the dev forums. They believe, and I am not sure how they have come to this conclusion, that once the Dev Forums open up they can then bypass everything that is ever said and done in the ?normal? forum and have everything they want in Dev Forum.

Richard is very generous with including higher KS backers one on one access, and that is very cool. However this issue probably gets under my skin the most. Constantly listening to people pretty much say "oh it doesn't matter what we say now, I am waiting till I get dev forum access cos we're kickstarters and they will only listen to who donated the most and that is me durrrrrrrrrrr" I really hope that when you open those Dev Forums that you remember, not every good idea comes from a kickstarter and in fact some pretty terrible ones come from us kickstarters too lol.

It is a difficult subject, but I feel that everyone should feel like they should be included. Not only now but for the duration of SotA in the future. The direction we are currently headed however, looks like it is off the edge of a cliff!

- Lone Wolves -

As stated, I cannot play in a Guild and it doesn?t matter why, just accept that as the variable. This could possibly exclude me from a number of activities in the game in which I might otherwise still wish to participate in.

Example: There is a competition at the X Hall for music. Guild 1 enters 50 players, Guild 2 enters 20 players, Guilds 3, 4, 5, and 6 have another 70 players divided among them. I enter myself? What are my chances? You can apply this loosely to any number of things and activities.

Another, and this is more difficult as I still don?t quite understand how this is going to work out in-game: Guild A has 10 people online, all 10 people are in a map hex with rare resources. I happen to be diverted into their hosted game for whatever reason and I would like to go to the hex. The hex is PvP enabled. One of those guild members will be harvesting, the other nine will be spawn camping my entry point into the hex. Btw I have yet to hear anyone mention spawn camping the entry points into map hexes, I would be keen on hearing how that will be addressed if it could become an issue.

Last: Guild Halls/houses and the privileges included therein. What if I was a casual gamer? What if I was totally unable to join a guild for whatever reason, and why should that preclude me from certain things? I suppose I can?t really flag this one all that much yet, as we don?t have much of an idea what is actually going to come with a Guild establishment, however I would love to see some sort of equalizing factor. If Guilds get X, then single players not in a guild should get Y so that there is balance. I certainly don?t think that a day old character should be able to be pushed via guild trading, economic status, special fixed crafting mechanics or whatever else you can think of.

In conclusion to the above, sharing experiences with other players in a guild setting is perfectly fine. However, I think that every player should be treated as an equal individual in the game weather in a guild or not, or having donated via KS / donated at all.

Basically I think what I am trying to say is this: I seem to now be willing to try and play a different play style with SotA. What have you done to me Richard Garriott!!! However, I wouldn?t go anywhere near SotA with THAT play style if it turns into a combination of an Oligarchical Lord of the Flies. Not at all. If it turns out that SotA is Lord of the Flies with Houses, then what needs to happen is the ability or me to PK everyone and create my own balance!

Take care,
MEMBRANE

 

Just join PaxLair Insane, problem fixed. We'll take you in....for a small fee (Paxlair.enjin.com)

Also, you will have to kiss my feet, in game, on a daily basis and pray to Gunga Din every night before you go to bed.

All jokes aside, I understand your concerns.

I've replied a few times about keeping the Post-KS pledges competitive with KS. Trying to avoid the "I am GOD Gap".

As far as the DEV forums, even though I have access to them, I have replied in some threads that I'm happy to take ideas from Regular to DEV forums. Our guild is also setup to take member feedback from those, not at the DEV tier, into the DEV forums.

I'm sure the DEVS will take care not to ostracize the majority of the player base.

So, go sign up at PaxLair. If they took me in, they must have been crazy, I'm sure you will be welcome.

 

Just one more thing....

The Ultima community is pretty special. I have no doubt, anyone and everyone, whatever and whenever they pledged, will be welcomed, supported and helped.

I'm sure its just a small group that feels entitled to own game.

 

Hey look! A mine field.
Let's try to avoid getting hurt.

@Membrane
I agree with some of the points you've made under Civil Rights above. There does seem to be a lot of people who are very focused on being able to have bragging rights over others, either by pledging earlier or pledging more. Hopefully, game settings will allow me to tune most of those folks out of my direct game experience. Also, after the game launches, hopefully there will be no need to comb the forums for information necessary to play the game, so I'll be able to tune them out here as well. However, since we're in development, I feel I have to participate here in order to at least voice an opinion. There are a lot of folks here declaring that their idea is the only way, and to do anything else would horribly break the game and make it unplayable. I would not want anybody to be able to say I didn't speak up while I had a chance.

I am mostly a lone wolf as well. It's possible I would join a guild, but not likely. If possible, I would make my own guild with me as the only member, so people will not try to recruit me. It is remotely possible a couple of real-life friends will play SotA, so making a guild with them would be something I might do if it allowed us to share storage or exchange messages more easily. Otherwise, I'm not really interested in being in a guild. If there is content I can't experience because I'm not in a guild, so be it. If I can't complete the story solo, that would be poor game design, and I don't think Portalarium will do that.

Example: If there is a dragon in the game that 100 people can band together and try to kill for some great reward, that's fine. I may ask to join a group that is going to try that, but if they tell me it's guild only, then fine. I just won't kill a dragon.

But if killing that dragon is required to complete the story, and I can't do it solo, then I shall be greatly disappointed. And although I don't think a dragon should be easy to kill, let's remember Smaug had a chink in his armor, and a single arrow brought him down.

 

My recommendation for the lone wolf type, but that want guild benefits, is join a guild that is not really a guild.

What I mean is establish or join a guild that is there purely to take advantage of guild benefits without any of the guild stuff. I belonged to one like this in LOTRO.

rules? No drama, and be respectful to others. That handles pretty much everything. You don't have to worry about members giving everyone a bad name or the guild leader kicks them under one of the two rules. beyond that.. no leadership, no structured events, etc.

You can when you want, ask people if they want to get together and do this, but no one has any obligation to do so.

This type of guild does work although you will have to expect that it has a high turn over and churns members a lot. It tends to be newer people. older people will eventually tend to want to join guilds that have more structured events and the like.

but for very solo/lone wolf players, or newer players that are looking for a place to call home while they figure things out, etc.. it works very well.

I may be willing to consider running a guild like this under an alternate character for people that want a home like this, if no one else is willing to run one (yes im aware there will probably be one character per account, but I will more then likely have more then one account and my wife and daughter and mom will probably all have accounts).

A guild like this only really requires a couple of things to run. It does need some recruitment done for it, just as far as telling people "Social guild, taking anyone currently recruiting" sort of thing. Also it does require 3 ranks:

member, guild leader, and officers.

you need enough officers around that one is almost always around, to recruit new members when people want to join, and to handle any of the no drama and be respectful issues when they turn up.. which I find is usually rare in this type of guild since people know that's the only thing that will get them kicked.

Anyway, just run a Social guild! If you want someone to run one and cant find anyone, hop over to www.thecaverns.net and put up a post in my forums about it. Ill offer to run a second guild that is a social only guild on an alternate account. Since they take very little to run when you know how, Id be more then willing to do that for people who want something like that - and I can create a forum for it on my main guild website that only the social guild has access to or sees.. They don't need anything more then a forum *shrugs*. If they wanted something else at some point I could create a corner on the web site for them for whatever they needed.

Addressing a couple other things.
I do agree there are a lot of people who think because they are kickstarters they are better then everyone.. I just ignore them and their posts *shrugs*. Society whether in real life or an MMO has already shown that people such as that will find themselves alone in little groups or pushed out of the game in time. In short this problem fixes itself if you literally just ignore it.

As far as a split between kickstarter and nonkicstarter..

I know right now that as a planned guild leader I absolutely am taking initial members as kickstarters only.. but only because initially those are the ones that are playing together because those are the only ones who have alpha and beta access!

Alpha and beta access when it starts will probably be when guilds start really recruiting heavily, establishing, forming, etc. Unfortunately with closed alpha/beta - that is what creates that rift.. not my choice.

BUT the moment that non-kickstarters can play, they are welcome to join my guild. Additionally, just because they cant officially join until official release, does NOT mean that they cant start (as of now), visiting the forums, providing input, providing out of game contributions, etc.. and be ready to be enrolled the moment they can be.

 

No guilds or groups of any kind for this Wolf

Also last post for a while and will now be retiring the InsaneMembrane account to open my KS account under a different name in the Dev+ forums. Can't have you all knowing who I really am now can we...

Oh and don't worry, you all are not missing anything in the dev forums, people are just copying and pasting stuff out of this forum for the time being. Go take a look, the titles of the posts are readily available and read by everyone even if you don't have dev forum access!

So long,
Niawo

 

I agree with you Insane. This whole level of who paid more having somehow a better understanding how things should work or somehow they are better game designers is a farce. I had to listen on chat when I brought up maybe having a subscription fee to see those forums and some of the "elites" lost their minds.

To be honest it has actually pushed me away from chat and what not. These forums have pretty much died worse then before the other ones opened. At the moment it doesn't feel like a community at all, but more of a have and have not.

I haven't seen the dev forums, but I'm assuming they are a bunch of people trying to push their agenda's and well I hope these guys know not to listen to all that.

Unfortunately this seems to be what the team wanted when they designed it this way.

 

Everyone has an agenda, but I think SotA is unique in that the game design can cater to different agendas and satisfy multiple seemingly conflicting requirements simply by using the server to control who you see, and who you do not see.

What I do not understand is why some people object to modes of play in which they will most likely never participate, which is entirely voluntary, and will not affect other players unless they choose to be affected by it.

Of course, I'm referring to crafters. Those guys are nuts, but far be it from me to object to them sitting in their shops, sewing pants, or whatever the heck they are doing. But some people, if it's not something THEY are doing, for some reason they think NO ONE should be doing it.

 

@Rune_74 I agree with you and disagree with you. First thing id say is just remember not to lump everyone in one category *chuckles*. The thing about the type of bad apples you speak of, when given a podium they will tend to use that podium a LOT which can give a sense that the majority may be like that when in fact it is a minority. Sore thumbs stick out and all that.

I can say with 100% honesty that as someone with Dev forum access, my PRIMARY priority has still been in these forums. I keep up with all new posts in these forums 100%. At the moment I have a LOT of unread posts in the Dev Forums. I have 0 unread new posts in these forums. The reason I am choosing this priority is because.. I want to participate with the whole community - I don't care what someone's pledge amount is. In the Dev forum im just interacting with part of the community. Therefore it is my second area of priority. Yes, I still want to participate and be a part of that, but only after Ive been able to keep up with what everyone has to say. I want to get to know the people I will be playing this game with.. All of them. Not just the ones that paid a lot.

Im also the type of person though that I will rarely ever say anything negative. If I do not have a positive comment to add, I try to keep my mouth shut.

@Owain I agree also about people objecting to things. Here's my best example:
I was watching a Twitter Q&A dev chat a while back for LOTRO. A question came up: "Why can't we make gold account sharable so we don't have to mail it to our own character's". The reply from the dev's was "As many people that ask for that there are an equal number that ask for that not to happen" (paraphrasing here). I looked at my phone I was watching the Q&A on.. thought "Idiots.. then you make it an option so that instead of only making 1/2 happy, you make everyone happy, and then increase your player base which is good for me as a player".. I then turned off the dev chat in annoyance.

Options.. Not everyone has the same play style, the same play tests, etc.. and it is in MY and yours (your meaning everyone), best interest to have more options, even if they are not the ones you would use. Because by having that option you are appealing to a specific taste of someone else, growing your player base, creating more opportunities for everyone, and ensuring the game is funded to stick around!

*chuckles* like I mentioned to rune_74 though, don't lump everyone into one category. I happen to be an avid crafter . In UO I had almost a every craft in the game maxed (15 characters). In LOTRO, I DO have every craft maxed in every way that you can do so.

I'm someone though that I want it all. I want crafting, PVP, PVE, RP, quests, dungeons, tactical battles, housing, shops, vendors, and more, oh my! That is why Im not a fan of most modern MMO's. They focus to heavily on some areas and neglect others. For me, I may really be into crafting right now. After a while I may start getting a bit bored with that so ill focus on PvP a little more. Eventually I go back to crafting again and its new and fresh. Or I may mix both up from a day to day basis. I want it all in one game though because If I spend 10 hours on crafting this week, I want that to be of benefit to me in someway next week when im focusing more on house decorating, rares dealing and PVE play.. And when I do those things I want that to in turn go back and feed my crafting the next time Im working on that.

That's why when I run a guild, I do it in a very "branched" style and format, so that the guild isn't just focused or themed in one area but is built so that everyone has an opportunity to become as focused as much as they want as in many areas as they want. Because that's the way I Play, I want it ALL.

I want shared gold per account! I also want there to be a button for those who want to separate funds to be able to say "don't group my funds on the account please".


-Stile
Guild Leader of Caverns, Dungeons, and Beyond
www.thecaverns.net

 

@InsaneMembrane Take care and chat you with in your next incarnation!

One thing of note I plan on doing with my guild Is I do want to have "honorary" members (as much as game mechanics will allow me to do so).

These would be rare, but one reason I wish to have them is for the more Lone Wolf type that occasionally want to join in with the guild for this or that.. come and go as they please, but not really be a part of the guild or even be in it.

So Keep CDB in mind should you ever find that you need a little help tackling something that's being stubborn on your own and maybe in time if your interested and It works out, you could be our first honorary member.

Kinda makes me think of the Character in Wheel of Time that Perrin meets.. cant remember his name (been years since I read any of it). But hes the wolf-kin that generally avoids society yet at the same time will join with and travel with the gypsies for a short time before going back to being a lone wolf again.

Or another parallel may be many of the characters in some of the Terry brook Series... The wizard that comes to town and lives there with a woman for a while and sires a child, before going back to his own agenda.. Im sure there are thousands of other parallels, just a couple that jumped to mind.

I love that, and I hope to have a couple of honorary members in my guild's future that fit that sort of play style. It's a sort of a..... "hey, its old John Wolf! Everyone its Wolf!!!!!!".. then later your a bit sad to see them go, but you know, sometime, eventually.. you'll have that sense of excitement when they drop by for a short time to stock up, ask you to help them kill a Balrog, eat your food, and seduce a couple of your women before moving on again.

-Stile
Guild Leader of CDB
www.thecaverns.net

 

i read the OP post and didnt go any further for the following reasons:

A - to clarify its knight and up not duke and up.

B - how you play the game is your choice, if you wish to make derogative comments to a late commer after you have killed them that is your choice and im sure you will have to live with whatever follows from that but to tell others that they cannot do the same thing is rediculous. This is directed at the paragraph 2 and 3 of your civil rights properganda.

C - It appears that you have an issue with certain aspects of the way things are being done, here is the hard truth 'if you dont like it go make your own game or shut up'.

D - Some people who are generally quiet arnt that way just to be able to speak in the dev forums they are that way because they have lives and other things better to do than to come here and read drivel like the post you made.

i think this thread should be locked from this point on as it is only subject to more trolling if left open

 

Thanks Matheryn, sweetie, I have edited the post to be more generic in terms of labeling the backers. I got Duke and up from another user in another post, seems none of us know what we're talking about in the end.

 

It is my experience that forums with lots of members tend to have a huge amount of slush topics (where the content is completely irrelevant or poorly thought out) and the number of irrelevant replies is greatly increased (where people don't bother to read or try to understand the OP). This is generally not the case of an intimate forum of only a handful of people. The Dev+ forum is somewhere in between but far closer to the "intimate" end of the spectrum.

My time on forums is limited so I'm not desperate to wade through hundreds of topics in order to find the best ideas. I'm also aversed to trolling and drama (open / non-gated forums with thousands of members tend to have this in over-abundance). I'm not aversed to disagreement or discussion, in fact it is important that players disagree and then discuss in a civil manner.

It is my hope (and assumption) that given the reduced number of posters in Dev+ that the number of slush topics and irrelevant replies is greatly reduced, and hence that quality is higher and further hence the time it takes me to find the great topics is massively reduced. I understand that doing this on the basis of dollars pledged is unfair to many who may be dedicated players but it is at least a workable solution which is perhaps the quickest and most effective filter.

The Devs also announced in KS that these forums would exist and would be a perk for backers at higher levels. People knew this before they pledged: no gun was held to their head.

$0.02

 

Good post, but totally nothing to do with the OT...

 

Nice attempt to ignore my reply. I directly address your complaint about "civil rights", while I acknowledge there is an issue I don't have as big of a problem with it.

 

I more or less agree with the original post. I'm not really concerned, though: I don't think RG / Portalarium would fall into the trap of listening to just the highest paying players, which is a group whose composition is bound to be skewed a fair amount; and the fact the game will also be playable solo offline more or less forces the devs to not restrict solo players too much.

AFAIK the idea was to have the entry point be somewhat randomized, not even necessarily at the edge of the map. This should make camping it far harder. I can't give you a specific quote or reference, though; I believe this was said in one of the KS-era hangouts, but I'm not sure.

 

Some of what IM touched on concerns me as well- without trying to sound or come off as wanting entitlement I'll just say that I spent years with UO as a contributor (good/bad ideas, dev chats, commentary ala CoB, Lum's, Stratics, etc;, and habitual White Knighting at times on certain issues) and find myself very anxious about this new project. It appears the development/design issues can be addressed beforehand this time around but many years later I find myself with more children, more bills, and less time than I'd like to have. My very first post I read had someone in it reply to someone else that "$1000 plus means I should get X or Y, and if they give this out later, I, and the rest would be pretty upset xx xx xx". I just wont be able to give up startup cash like I'd want to to see the game happen, and if I had it, I'd expect nothing in return except the chance to see a reawakening happen. Hear me out here- I'd give it away, because I came to these games early on with a genuine desire to be part of the process and my benefit was communal enjoyment. Too many games have fallen into the have and have not traps, and old UO ala RG started everyone off on relative equal footing.

I spent months hacking trees and selling round shields to get my first house. I set up a merchant tent and sold bows. Eventually, after 2 years, I managed a medium house, all solo, and enjoyed every damn minute of it. My first impression looking over the "tone" of things is, this may not be possible. I wouldn't want a house up in the 'burbs because frankly, Aristocrats tend to smell to high heaven for different reasons while us rural/deep woods/mountain folk cough up a different type of stench that simply reeks of hard work; If I cant even tent up in a cave or drop some logs down for a modest place to keep my things dry I cant see a point of staying, let alone contributing much or with much enthusiasm because the sense of ownership just wouldn't be there.

I just hope it works out.

 

I think there is going to be a signifigant division (in behavior and self precived status) between the "high-lords" and the commoners & peons too from what I've read in some of the forums here.

Also I play solo exclusively too, due to having a bad case of dyslexia (so bad I can't even use spell-checker too good.lol), which makes it very tough and slow to chat and communicate in game. So I play alone, it's easier than explaining my personal life to everyone I meet and having to deal with grammer/spelling Nazis and still being left behind or feeling like I'm inconvieniencing somonelse.

I'm prepaired to be left out of the big events and fancy parties, pass by or leave undone quests that I can't do alone (this is how it is in every MMO I've played) and to be written off and ignored by those who think they are my betters because they payed more for a video game than me. This is just the way of things, one thing that is true though is that I will treat everyone I meet as equals and judge them by their behavior and actions and not by their golden name tags.

 

I do not think you have anything to worry about chaoshobbit. Sure there's always going to be people that have a better then you attitude. Those type of people when given a microphone tend to not wish to share it and will use it. That's the beauty of an online game and also of guilds. you can ignore the people that don't fit in with the attitude and style that meshes with yours. There's going to be plenty of people that do mesh with you and those are the people and guilds you interact with. I know I get really involved, post a lot, etc.. but its because im excited, I want to get to know as many people as I can, start feeling out who are going to be the people I really want to play with, and so on.

Dyslexia can be rough. Over the last decade or so when I was running a local pen and paper game club I have had two members with the condition. I was always impressed with their ability to overcome the condition and we always kept it in mind when gaming with them but everyone has something and we didn't treat them any differently then anyone else. In fact sometimes they would have to remind us *chuckles*. I had one guy that had dyslexia, ADD, and OCD all 3!

Everyone has something. I could see in an online game when there would be times that it would be a condition that would be hard for a group to accommodate based on what the group was doing but I could also see there being a lot of things where its no big deal and could be.

Feel free to friend me on facebook.. Stile Teckla. Ill put you on my SotA list and when we start playing give me a shout and id love to go hunting with you sometime to see if where a couple of people that mesh well in an online game.

Knew a guy once, guild recruiter. Said the best way to get to know someone was to go hunting with them. Was very true, a couple of hours of DUO play is one of my favorite ways to feel out potential guild recruits and potential game friends. Its not about conditions or how well they play - its about personality and getting to know them. A good relaxed duo hunt, with maybe a couple of more intense battles and just a lot of general stuff presents an opportunity for a lot of different situations give a lot of opportunities to chat and get a sense of someone based on just how they play and play style. Someone with a better then you attitude is going to stick out in minutes.

 

i think that people are getting the wrong idea of the items given to you as a KS\Backer, they are not an entitlement or a reward, they are infact a thankyou gift for supporting them. RG and co. dont seem like the type to take something without giving something back in return 10 fold, so hence the 'thankyou gifts' for those that contributed. As was stated by RG and co. they are not forcing people to pledge nor are they going to penilise you if you dont, and they understand that some people are just not in the position to pledge even though they would like to.

I dont know how anyone else was brought up but my mother always taught me to always send a thankyou note and\or a small gift to anyone who has done something of great benifit to you as a thankyou gift hence what it is that RG and co. have done.

As for the forums, I do believe that there train of thought was that those who have pledged at Knight and above have both the time and effort to be able to assist in any way they can. The dev forums are not ment as a privlege to say 'oh your better than the others' as from what im aware of that everyone can read them but only knight and above can reply. Those who cannot reply are more than welcome to open a thread in general about any topic. I may be wrong on this but this is my speculation on the topic.

I myself have ample amounts of time even though i have limited amounts of money i have still pledged to knight and have been working on several concepts i would love implemented into the game and as soon as there done ill be adding them to the dev forums to see what RG and co. think.

Because i have access to these forums i DO NOT believe i am better than those that done NOR do i believe im better than those that are not recieving the 'thankyou gifts'.

Thanks,
Matheryn