SotA R26 from a single player perspective

This release I tried something. I tried to approach SotA the way I would play a new single player game.
Yes, the game is not ready yet but I want to tell you my impression about how SotA plays in its current incarnation as a single player game.

Maybe I will do this again every release to see how much changes.

So let's begin! Attention - there are some Story Spoilers!

After the intro in which I am drawn into the world of New Britannia I find myself on a strange floating island. A woman is awaiting me. She beckons me to talk to her.
Curious as to what happened I talk to her. Through a wall of unformated text in a chat protocol I learn a few interesting things about this world and Lord British. She wants to determine my destiny and I have to answer a few questions. Then she sends me on my way to discover the world. I am excited as to see what will await me!
I explore the island and discover a strange circle of Stones: a lunar rift. I brace myself and walk through!

Suddenly I find myself in another place. A city is burning down the hill. What happened here? I see someone lying on the ground, a guard. He seems to be badly wounded. I try to help. He tells me that his name is Gawain and that elves attacked the settlement and that I have to take an amulet to his commander Brigid in Resolute. I need to find the key for the gates in order to leave this place.

I begin to explore the area. There are corpses everywhere! There is a weapons rack nearby and I am asked to train a bit... Everything is burning around me, maybe there are still people left who need my help but I should train with practice dummies instead?
At the gate, a bard awaits me. He tells me that he has the key to the gate and gives it to me. Now that was easy. Before I leave I explore this place further. There is a healer here. Maybe he can help the wounded guard who asked me carry the amulet to the commander. But he doesn't understand what I am saying. I return to the guard, maybe he died, but he is still alive! Someone must be a able to help him!!! Unfortunately not... He will just lie there, dying until all eternity...

It seems that the healer lied to me as there are no other survivors here. What's the matter with this guy? Why is he even here? At least he told me that I can find the city of Resolute to the north. Angry and a bit disappointed that there is nothing more to do here or more to discover about the NPCs, I open the gates. There are elves waiting outside! Time to try out my sword! After I killed those enemies I explore the surroundings. I discover an interesting looking cave. Maybe there is something inside, some treasure maybe... But it is empty. I reach a lake with an island in the middle and swim towards it, hoping to discover something there. But there is nothing there... So I walk on and see some tents in the distance. This must be the camp of the elves. Cautiously I sneak on, but there is no one there... I explore the camp but cannot find anything. No chests with interesting items, no order of the elves, nothing. Disappointing.

So I decide to leave the area. Every time I discover some interesting place this strange and not very atmospheric chat window pops up, blocking my view with unneccesary information. I get annoyed by this.

Now I find myself on the overland map. I travel to the north, towards Resolute. The overland map does look really good, but it is empty. Where are the animals, birds or some low hanging clouds to make it a bit more atmospheric?

I reach Resolute and travel to the gates of the city. It is raining but the ground is not getting wet... The town seems rather empty. There are not many people living here... I enter some - rather empty looking - buildings (why is no one decorating their homes with lots of items and maybe some plants?) and ask for Brigid. They tell me that she is in the tavern. So I go there and talk to her. Again walls of unformated text, interrupted by information about items and EXP I receive. It gets harder and harder to read and and be immersed in the dialogues. I tell her about Gawain and she asks me to bring her amulet to the court of Valhold...

Ok, let's do a recap: My first quests are: Take an amulet to Brigid who asks me to take an amulet to Valhold? Ooook....

I visit the Lord Marshal of the city who resides in an empty building. He tells me to find his scout in Highvale because he needs some item. Also I shall deliver a message to the guard captain in Ardoris. Oh come, on. Again finding and delivering something? But I explored all of the area of Highvale and there was no one there... Ok, I have to go back, maybe I missed something.

Back in Highvale the area has suddenly been overrun by bandits and wild animals! A few hourse ago it was empty! I begin to search for the scout and find the cave again. This time there are undead in it! Now where did they come from? And on the island in the lake there is some wizard guarding a chest. Strange that all of this wasn't there before, it would have made my first visit way more interesting.

I discover a camp with a small tent. Maybe this is where the Scout is? But there is no one there. I find a bedroll. Maybe I should sleep a bit. The Scout could return anytime. Sleeping is not possible So I have to stay awake and wait if he returns. No one is coming... I explore a bit more and kill some wolves who had attacked a deer.
Exploring becomes a bit of a burden as I am attacked every few steps and the enemies do respawn rather quickly (where do they all come from?). Also the annoying chat window pops up constantly when a skill advances... So I decide to stop my search for the Scout as I am fed up with fighting for now.

I would like to explore the village but normally I would now save the game on another slot so that I can load again if something goes wrong. But savegames are not in yet, as there is no offline mode yet. So I call it quits here - for now.

 

It sounds like you had a great adventure. I'm not sure how anyone can say that exploration like that would be key in any rpg.

Just remember that this is a living breathing world....

 

With more complex quests full of surprises and twists, a MUCH better dialoge system/interface, more interesting and detailed cities, more complex and deep NPCs as well as less MMO-elements (chat window, constant notifications) together with the upcoming special respawn rules and some more things we can discover in the scenes, SotA could become a good game. I can see the potential but from a single player perspective there are still a lot of things missing or which have to be changed

 

Don't forget this was planned as a MP game that could be played offline now as some posters claim. I don't think that was the intention though.

 

That chat window is really silly. Less pop-ups, maybe a different font color between real conversations, etc... just something. I have resigned myself to justifying my upgrade in hopes that ep2 through 5 will be phenomenal.

 

@OP, Really glad to see you giving more actionable feedback from the SP perspective, Lord Darkmoon. I think that's the only way that SP folks are going to get what they want.

Making /bug reports is really important too. I know some of the people that care deeply about the single player experience have said in the past that they didn't want to "play the game" for fear of ruining the story. But if they don't test the game, how can they give actionable feedback to make it better before it's too late?

I hope you continue to do this, I can't imagine it wouldn't be appreciated by the developers.

 

Ok, now that I found the scout I got another quest: I have to take a letter to the Lord Marshall in Resolute... The Lord Marshall on the other hand gives me a letter which I have to deliver to guard captain Cugel in Ardoris...

So, out of - what - five quest, five are fedex-quests?
I mean, come on! Is this all we do in the game? Delivering letters and items? Are we the postman?
Fedex-quests are ok if they are used very sparsely. But every single quests you get at the beginning of the game is a fedex-quest!

The quests so far:

Bring an amulet to Resolute
Bring the amulet to Valhold
Bring a letter to the Lord Marshall
Bring a letter to guard captain Cugel

 

I like this approach.

And your "state of the game" report makes me want to log in and poke around again. Been on a long break.

 

Sounds like you had a meaningful experience

These really need work...this isn't good enough at all. How will this make the world feel immersive at all?

 

Why would anyone just think "hey maybe I'll sleep in this random person's bedroll while I wait."?!

I give you finding a creative way to complain about the things you don't like.

 

Um what?

We can't sleep in ANY bed roll....at all.

 

I'm simply responding to the OP though.

 

I would have slept in a bed, too but there was none.
In Ultima 7 I used my bedroll in the wilderness when I wanted to advance time.
I thought that the scout maybe had a schedule and would return to this camp eventually.

 

Are you kidding? That's what the Awaken spell was for in U7, so you could barge into someone's house at night, forcibly evict them from their warm bed, and then dive in for a quick nap