Steam Reviews Seriously Bad

I'd tend to agree. But we do know these devs are crazy and super hard working. The amount of progress each month is insane. But is it enough time given the current state? I'm doubtful.

...and it looks like this thread is getting sucked into an "Is it an MMO" debate again...

 

Yes, in the tens of hours of interviews/hangouts and 30 or so updates, you've found two spots where RG was appealing to the single-player crowd to come to his game. In those same interviews he's talking about UO, multi-player, social gaming. In the first interview just after talking about a story-driven solo experience included in the game, he also talks about the wonderful open persistent world of Ultima Online.

"Shroud of the Avatar... what I hope we can do, is provide a story driven experience that harkens to U4-U7, but also you can play online... and you can control how close to an MMO you want it to be."

Your description of a true single-player game is companions with paper-doll system and deep stories beyond "pets" but he also says in that second video that you linked (at 14:30) he says they won't give an AI companion party, but you can play with your friends in a party (and yet we will have companions!).

It is easy to take small parts of a campaign and to quote them to support a generalization. But if you take the campaign in it's entirety you will find that UO is mentioned a lot, as are MMO's - in the second video at 5:40 they also state that RG's ability to tell a story "will set them apart from the world of MMO's."


This game was not marketed ONLY as a single-player game, that is just the only part you are focused on. I do not feel we are getting a different game than was marketed, not in the slightest.

I can understand people feel they are not getting they wanted. (PS> Devs have repeatedly responded to your posts on the single-player experience saying they want to get there, but persistent world takes precedence and then they circle back to story/unique NPCs/meaningful quests afterwards.)

I want the game you want and I would totally back a single-player Ultima based game. I hope to see it one day.

 

I think its no surprise that the chat/quest system is foreign to newer gamers who never experience text-based adventure games, MUDS, and Ultimas.

I mean, who thinks to ask an NPC anything in another game these days? They stand there as morons handing out quests on parchment and that's about it.

Interestingly though, SOTA making the old chat/quest system new again might be the right trend. Last week I was reading a review of another online game where the reviewer was lamenting that games are doing nothing to invent beyond simple one dimensional quest delivery systems and how boring NPCs are. Well, that's not the case with SOTA. It is inventing.

I see the interactive NPC chat/quest approach here as an asset in this regard. Though I can see how some gamers focused on just grinding wont want to spend time quizzing NPCs.

 

It's hard to be sure at this point, but you may be surprised how quickly it all comes together. Most user facing software is iceberg-like, what you see is less than 10% of the whole thing. That also makes it hard to judge progress unless you can see the code. We do know some people who can see the code and they believe it'll be ready in December, I'm inclined to trust them at this point.

On the other hand, there's also the classic software development truism:

The first 90 percent of the code accounts for the first 90 percent of the development time. The remaining 10 percent of the code accounts for the other 90 percent of the development time.​

 

We'll see. They make great strides every month.

 

For me the important thing is that the SP part always was mentioned first. During the Kickstarter, the first videos and on the website. For me this implies that during this time the SP part seemed to have had priority. Sure over time and in more and more videos the SP part got moved into the background and the MMORPG part took center stage.
Problem is during the beginning the focus on the SP part made many people think that SP (offline) would be at least equally as important as the MMO part. Because of this many pledged.
Looking at the game now it is an MMO. All of the gameplay elements are MMO mechanics. How can the SP part be build on MMO mechanics without playing and feeling like an MMO? This makes the SP part feel like tacked on. As if it is just there because it was announced during the beginning - a nuisance that is taking away precious development time from the MMO part.
As I said before, if you make World of Warcraft playable in an offline mode it will not automatically become a single player RPG. But this seems to be what is happening with SotA..

 

This is an excellent observation. We all come to it with a certain set of expectations.

I'm not upset by the pace. If this were being done at a larger studio we'd never see all the ugly versions. We'd only get to see when it's too late to fix it! Instead we can provide feedback now. I'm convinced we have the ear of the company even if our suggestions aren't implemented.

We may not get what we want but we get regular releases, responses on the forum, and constant feedback/interaction with the company. They aren't wasting our money, even if we disagree with the result.

So far I'm happy enough. I get to be here till the end and if we make it I can say I was there.

 

Using WoW as an example for an offline mode would be too easy for arguing, since in the beginning at least grouping and socialising was very important. The quests in Shroud so far arent expected to have more ppl than you, to follow them and arent your typical kill 500 wolfes ones. And there are great examples of mmos with very deep storytelling, where the mmo aspect (in the most easiest sense requiring you to be online) doesnt hinder the single player experience at all. A very great example would be The Secret World, which combines great storytelling with an mmo and socialising, another one would be The Elder Scrolls Online, where you could follow the stories for weeks and not even care if its a "mmo" at all. You even could read books in this game for weeks and never take a look into grouping,dungeons,mmoing whatever. Things arent always black or white and im thinking that single player aspect of the game will be very well laid out. Another reason, as if i remember to have read it in some posting, for building out the online aspect first, is to have all systems needed in place.

But i dont get it, why theres statements now, single player wont happen properly, noone will take care for it etc, when its not even finally done atm. If its still missing at release, theres room for argumentation. But for now its simply in the works.

 

If you're playing on Linux then your experience will be seriously bad.

 

Single player was never mentioned first or above any other thing. It was always equal measure single and multiplayer. Always. And "story" is not specific to single player, it is part of both the single and the multiplayer elements of the game.

 

I tell my friends it is coming along well but should hold off buying for the moment and see how the final product looks, unless they really want to jump right in. Here are some of my criticisms from playing other MOO's and never playing ultima.

Player Shops:
The whole sell in front of the players house instead of an auction house will be a no go for many players. After FFXIV trying to let every person have their own personal vender fail many will see this one aspect as a mmo failure. An alternative to an Auction house is have NPC's who already have shops sell player items for them and those NPC's then take a commission from the sale. The NPC only sells items related to what they already sell. Blackmish only sells weapons and armor, alchemist potions and so on. For the random stuff, a trader in the towns marketplace that sells oddities.

Crafting:
Failing to craft with the chance of crafting a better item is something no average player i foresee having an issue with. Even the long grind to specialize in a crafting tree still no problem. Loosing items you gathered, that you spend a few hours doing would be a rage quit for most (just what i heard not sure if fully true.) Loosing cheap items you can buy 5 feet away no big deal. So i think minor tweaks is all that is needed to make players happy with it.

Combat:
I think it is coming along well. I would be fine with 1 bar only and no deck drawing or switching. Force the player to limit their skills in the fight to make them plan, have strengths, and weaknesses based on what skills they choose to bring into the fight.

Some magic trees could use more attack spells, doesn't have to be fancy either.​

Money Shop:
First I didn't like it but with the more detailed explanation I'm fine with it. It gives no one any major advantage. I view it as a Pay to slightly advance instead of P2W.

Quests:
I like how quests are, they can be a little difficult to find but asking a guard or tavern owner is easy enough to find a quest.

 

Player vendors are here to stay - one of the main reasons for increasing pledges is to grab a better spot during the land rush to place a vendor. Of course, they don't have to stand outside properties. Personally I would prefer it if vendors had to be placed inside buildings, and Portalarium provided an extensive range of signage that could be placed on buildings to attract customers.

Providing a powerful in-game search facility to find vendors with lower prices, etc. would help a great deal, however.

 

What about vendor at the house but the same item is also available at the local npc shop at a slightly higher price. Bought and sold from the same person tho.

 

I have not seen this at the office. We are very considerate to ALL constructive opinions. I personally do my best to ensure it stays that way at least.

Right! We are trying our best to improve the game for all, but some are just not going to like it in the end. If you are having fun and contributing your thoughts for improvements at the same time, we thank you!

We do have to keep in mind that Steam is a VERY broad audience, so the negative reviews are at least part a combination of two things:

1 - A broad audience not understand what SotA is all about

2 - A broad audience not realizing what Early Access really means

It's how you say it more often than what you say, I would say .

This is important to consider, you are right to point it out. The Steam reviews are unfortunate, but that is definitely not the "end-game" feedback to focus on. Let us get this game shipped, and then we can get those new reviews out there.

We are working on enhancing the tutorial and other initial sequences to better accommodate new players that may not get right away the style of how the world functions for questing and such.

For those who keep looking back at super early comments on the game from years ago, especially one or two casual comments buried within a larger statement... games change in their scope and what's possible when the rubber hits the production road. Whether it's a Kickstarter or not, this is an inescapable fact and necessity of development. Sometimes we can't anticipate every contingency, so development shifts. Hopefully that shift is for the better.

One of the biggest goals of our community plans, current and moving forward, is to listen and respond to player feedback. I think the team has excelled at this in a thousand ways. We post weekly updates, regular livestreams, and even have Lord British himself involved. To me that's amazing!

 

@kazafk,

Well, this is a whole topic that I've tried to get into in other threads. The devs need to think about how the market works from the player's end.

First of all, from the players end, the vendors aren't going away, so as a game we need to encourage specialized shops and means of advertisement. The devs need to get in shop signs, so shops can be identified, and noticeboards where say I could go into Owl's Head and put up a flyer advertising a shop in Wizard's Rest. It would be helpful for people to be able to put work orders on vendors, too, asking for a certain item. Player mail will help, too.

For the public vendors, I'd like to see public vendors split into different types, like weapons traders, fishmongers, etc., that take consignment, but only for a certain type of item.

I agree with others btw on some of the issues with NPC conversations. Its not that its so confusing, but its always lacked good presentation. Player-to-player chat, notifications, and the NPC conversation interface are all smashed together in a really unappealing chat-style interface, and also the NPC responses don't pause like they might in a single player game so you can read them (ie U5), so you have to scroll back to read them.

Its also something that needs a lot of thought and polish.

 

steam should allow people to rereview a product in early access every so often just like the Google Play store allows people to rereview the apps that we last reviewed long ago after new updates to the app. Technically the apps I installed on Google 2 years ago are totally enhanced since then so they need a new review same with SotA.

I understand they feel that they are protecting their players or whatever, but I had to wait a about a month before rereviewing the shroud reciently. Although it can be done. If we delete our review we have to wait one full month before writing a new one and perhaps it isn't such a bad for us to do that sometime over this next year. If we delete it now we can rereview it before the fianl wipe so people know that the players that do play this consistently still like the game... since we've played it for several years. Perhaps we ought to do that again before it is settled in for an official launch marketing campaign.

I do think that we should be able to rereview it since it has dramatically changed since a few years back.

 

Sounds *exactly* the same as what I have heard them say even to this day in videos. Seems like they are working towards that goal right now very well.

 

These people are rarely giving feedback. These people are usually trolls. I wish you would stop listening to them and start banning them. They continue to be a huge source of false narratives, incorrect information and disruptive distractions from the progressive development of this game.

It's one thing to have an opinion that people disagree with. It's another thing for these people to consistently lie to advance their agendas that often run parallel to the destruction of our game, and our community.

I'm talking about our forums.

 

This.

I've posted enough information (both publicly and privately) to point at the dissonance in relation to the market at large over the time I've been here. Polish is usually left to last because it means no rework while system changes are going on.

That said, the last thing this game needs is a public access period before new player experience and interaction design overall are seriously revisited.

We'll see how it goes.

 

Do you honestly believe that Richard doesn't have a large wad of cash tied up in this endeavor?
If so, you don't appreciate how small a sum of money $8M is for an endeavor like this.