SotA officially an MMO

I believe that the people who say ' it's just the label that changed ' . mean that the game you've been playing is still the SAME game - regardless of label.

 

hmmmm

How is "an MMO that has a single player questline that harkens back to single player Ultimas"

not

"an MMO that can be played single player"?

Unless you're implying the first can't be played single player? Or that the 2nd doesn't have a single player quest-line? Excepting that neither description excludes those options (respectively or otherwise)

I'm not seeing how these descriptions contradict each other? So the "huge practical difference" would be....?

 

Oh I get that, but to me it means that Portalarium internally the goal of the game has changed. And while people like me who want the SP experience and are not happy with how it is NOW still had hope for it to be changed, now we can basically forget that hope. SotA will be what it is.

 

If you do not understand the difference explaining it further won't help I fear.

But I'll try:

Being able to play an MMO storyline offline is a single player option yes BUT a MMO storyline offline is NOT a single player experience that harkens back to single player Ultimas IV-IX.

 

Was there a design change or did they stop fighting a label? What we have now vs what a few releases might do to things vs what people want to identify with.

I’d be surprised if they are doing a major course correction. More likely, they are delving into the Publishing aspect and have realized the same thing all the other games (Guildwars 1 for example) Fighting the label only causes confusion because the label had many interpretations.

 

Neither description says anything about an MMO/multiplayer storyline. For that matter, nothing is said about NOT having a single player storyline.

 

I think you are right!
But that also means that the game is definitely NOT what they promised Single Player Ultima fans. Which means I won't be around much longer and others like me won't either. But then again, the SP fans are not the ones who buy housing decoration, so who cares right? We just financed a big part of the damn kickstarter...

 

I Hope too, +1 here
Single Online Mode too need to be removed..

 

I get that you and others who think like you want this game for themselves but you 300 won't be able to keep this game alive. You need people who like things you are not that much interested in. But hey keep up the "good" fight - in the end it is slow game-suicide you are practicing here. You might enjoy it now. But you will end up with the server being shut down and then what do you have? Nothing OR if Portalarium wants, a game you can run on your own PC, single player. Now woudn't that be ironic. So think about what you are wishing for, it might come true.

 

Chris Spears, aka Atos, is the Technical Director for the game. Pretty sure he has a good idea of the intentions of the Dev Team.

My interpretation of that quote is simply: Chris was stating that in reality, this game is an MMO (and always was) but the "Selective Multiplayer" description that was originally used for it was confusing for many. Therefore, they stopped using that term to describe the game to avoid further confusion.

As far as I know, the goal is still to keep the selective multiplayer and single player options available to us so nothing has really changed except the terms they use in marketing the game.

Portalarium has always (IMO) kept their word on promises they make to us. If they feel they have to go back on it "for the good of the game" and not deliver something they have promised... they have gone above and beyond to compensate for anything they don't deliver.

I also feel that Richard and Starr strongly want the Single Player option they promised to not only still be an option, but to be a really awesome option! They have already stated that any item that was ever given as a pledge reward and/or was sold on the add-on store will be available for us to buy with in-game gold in the offline mode. They want the offline mode to be worthy of buying the game for too.

 

Since people are emotionally invested in this title lets take a different example:
Elite Dangerous
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elite:_Dangerous#Gameplay
it has a solo campaign and a single player setting, yet it is still referred to and marketed as an MMO due to how publishing works


However with that said. Yes it was always going to be a compromise, where a game designed specifically for one or the other would be able to cater more specifically to that choice.
Where big budget like for Star Citizen they could make the choice to have a separate installer/module to cater more to the single player story
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Citizen#Squadron_42

 

Yeah but lets be honest. Being able to play a MMO story offline is NOT the same as playing a game like Ultima 7, which was promised.

 

Was promised and will be delivered.

However, let's be realistic here. The majority of the backers of this game so far have been interested in the MMO aspect of the game. Funding needed to continually develop this game is mostly coming from POT's, Bundles with lot deeds, deco stuff, etc. Since that kind of thing is what sells the most, that is what they need to cater to while developing the game to completion.

The SP Offline mode will happen, but it wouldn't be possible in this crowd-funded business model without cash flow coming in to build it.

If you are here only for the offline SP mode, then you will need to be patient as it is being built around the engine that runs the Online modes. Once it is good enough to play with other players and all the bugs are fixed, they will go back and modify the offline content, NPC merchants, mob difficulty, etc. to make the SP offline mode a better experience.

You keep throwing out this 300 player number as the totality of the test group. Not even sure if that is accurate, but even if it is, how many of those 300 do you think are here for SP Offline mode only? Let's be modest and say 15%. It's probably not even that high, but I'll give you the benefit of the doubt.

So that would mean there are about 45 people invested and here now for the SP mode. How much money do you think those 45 people contributed to the $12+ million raised? Have you contributed any extra besides your initial kickstarter pledge? Do you think more than half of those 45 paid more than the initial kickstarter pledge? Do you think the contributions from SP players alone was enough to develop this game? Any game? I highly doubt it. Without the backing of MMO players interested in this game, it would never be created in the first place!

I know it's been a looooooooong time since kickstarter and I understand your patience wearing thin. But my only advice to you at this point is to keep waiting for this product to be finished. I believe when it's complete you will have what you were originally looking for.

 

Port made it clear that the storyline will be polished a bit more till release but it's done. So it was not delivered. And what makes you think it will? I HAD that hope. I don't have it anymore.

We both do not have numbers on that, but I strongly disagree. I dare to bet that most of the Kickstarter backers were single player Ultima fans. I followed it closely (comments etc). And without the Kickstarter being successful there would not be a SotA or the SotA store.

However most of the cash grab, sorry SotA store customers are definitely MMO fans yes.

I paid 500 dollars in Kickstarter. Not money I spend lightly, but it seems now I and others like me don't matter anymore because we do not buy blood, hair and virtual decorations at Telethons. They already got the money we were willing to give, so who cares if they change what they promised to get our money in the first place. It's all about housing and pseudo celebrity of 2 of the creators. I am sick of hearing how awesome RG was in creating the Ultima series when now he could not care less about the people who made him successful in the first place.

Oh I ABSOLUTELY agree with you. And that is exactly why I lose interest.

 

If you are talking in general terms I'd disagree since I just gave you two examples of exactly that.

However if you are talking specifically about this title and its current implementation right now then I'd agree with you that, no, the narrative, the flavor and mood in the world that we got so far is not at the level of the ultimas of old. Where a bunch of the issues can be chalked up to design decisions due to the iterative implementation and staff shortage.

However I, being me, would also point out that a lot of that is due to being a kickstarted indie title with budget constrains.

I did not join at the Kickstarter for a reason. But rather waited until I understood the business model and saw some tangible results.
Which also meant that my expectations wasn't a big budget production.
But instead given the money and resources they have I'd state that they are delivering way beyond what those sum normally gives. Which includes story.

But of course being the besserwisser I am I sincerely wish that I could have made some of those design decisions for them back in 2014-2015. Like object oriented dialog for filler NPC responses, it boggles my mind how much time is spent on updating/copy paste unique entries instead. Etc.

 

Is Binding of Issac a "Rogue-like" or a "Twin-Stick Shooter"?

Take it or leave it but, if the devs are trying to build an "MMO that has single-player questlines that harkens back to single-player Ultimas"... it's still a god damned MMO.

Calling it an "MMO" instead of this vague "selective multi-player" label changes nothing. The devs are still going to do everything they can to deliver a successor to everything Ultima because that's what they've set out to do regardless of what they call it.

How?

If you're making a chocolate cake and you've been calling it a "bobli-gop" for 4 years, then decide to call it a "cake". It doesn't suddenly mean that your cake is vanilla flavoured.

As much as I agree with your overall statement, I had to argue this particular quote. They've been in the industry as long as anyone could be. They should know how much game development costs. As their first "return to form" title, maybe they shouldn't have decided to chew so much.

Hindsight is 20/20, but they're 20years+ professionals.

 

I don't think it has to do with budget or being indie. It's all about design decisions and priorities.

Design decisions examples:
- Dialogue that can't even keep up with 20something year old Ultima 7 because RG won't let his story people (Lum) do their work (see flavour text discussion etc)
- Ultima 7 was so great because it showed love to detail. Something like a skeleton in the attic of a little village with just 3 houses (meaning in a small space where it seem very important) would not jsut be there for decorations - it would have some kind of side story going along with it.
- having to grind to keep going in the single player story...
- no visible consequences
there are many things, I could go on

Priorities:
- Item store funds them, item sotre customers are people who usually care more about the MMO part of the game - MMO game and item store are more important to them.
- Starr Long and Chris Spears are both the most important developers in this project along with RG of course. It is VERY obivous and not a conspiracy theory that both are WAY more interested in an MMO than this annoying single player stuff. Their priority is the MMO, there is no doubt about it.

PS: It seems RG tired to get Warren Spector in the beginning, but Warren wasn't interetsted. Warren was responsible for big parts of the greatness of Ultima VI and VII. Warren (a single player Ultima mastermind and outspoken fan of SP games) not coming on board but Starr (creator of UO) coming on board was what really started the direction SotA went.

 

Character building and combat in the Ultima series was next to nothing. It has always been about how alive the wolrd felt. At least to me.

That’s not happening here either but my hope lands in the dynamic content. The stuff betewen each season fed to us in the monthly releases.

 

If you're going to build a game that works both in single-player and multi-player, you kind of have to build the multi-player parts first.

What you should be wondering is why there's so much effort made to housing when the story (or the tools to write/script it) is lagging so far behind.

 

We've never said it wasn't going to be an MMO as you know, please see our description lineup here:

Shroud of the Avatar: Forsaken Virtues is a fantasy RPG that combines a single player narrative with a sandbox MMO ...

• Episodic Content: Five episodes of virtue based stories created by Richard Garriott and Tracy Hickman; supported by prequel novels starting with Blade of the Avatar.
• Single Player Offline Mode: Players will adventure through over 40 hours of story in an interactive world where their choices during ethical paradoxes have consequences.
• Selective Multiplayer Modes: You can also play with everyone in a single world with three different online modes (Single Player, Friends Only, and Open).
• Classless Character System: Vast customization options with hundreds of skills and spells in over 20 different skill trees.
• Player Driven Economy: Deep crafting system where the best items are made by players and player items are the main source of loot found in the game.
• Skillful Combat: A new way to prepare and fight in an RPG by building custom decks of skills and dynamically activating them in combat.
• PVP: Consensual with Open PVP flags, zones, and Guild Warfare.
• Pay Once to Play: No subscription fees. Each episode (released approximately annually) is a one time fee and everything in the game can be purchased with in game gold that can be earned (except for some exclusive backer rewards).
• Player Housing: Non instanced, finite, and embedded in the world with multiple group living options.
• Social: Full Guild System, Highly Active Community and Player Owned Towns.
• Crowd Sourced & Funded: Support the project by contributing content (and receive compensation) or by pledging (and receive exclusive rewards).
• Open Development: Players help shape the game by giving feedback on monthly early access releases, videos, weekly updates, blog postings, forums, chat, etc.

Again, let's not keep rehashing these topics. Thanks!